Becoming Vulnerable (Pt. 1)

In the past, and by that I mean a few weeks ago, I discovered that I had made work and my ability to work my god. I had begun to consider working for God equal to loving God and believed that sacrifice would earn me a slot in heaven. I wanted so badly to be in a place of honor before God that I idolized the human desire for perfection and saving face over the truths of forgiveness, redemption and grace. I became prideful in my abilities, and as a result what were meant for gifts became chains. I feared my needs and saw neediness as a sign of insecurity, incompetence and incapability. Burnout was a quick term that meant "You are weak, lazy and unwilling to work hard enough to push through, to persevere". I feared trusting others. The words "group work" made my ears bleed. The idea of dependence on another to complete my tasks was gut wrenching. And last, but not least, vulnerability was out of the question.



To be vulnerable meant that I was open for attack. That at any moment anyone or anything could hurt me. Life has taught me to guard myself. Broken trust and physical abuses have left me fearful to leave myself open in anyway. I have struggled to see that my inability to be vulnerable has made me not only unable to love, but unable to receive love. So, I have adorned myself with protection. Education and achievement have been my shield. If I can play the game and place myself high enough up I become untouchable, unbreakable, unable to be harmed. This is a truly lonely road.


The beautiful thing is in the midst of all of this stone has always been a heart. A heart that has been created for and is known by God. A heart that still beats and bleeds regardless of being deeply buried and burned. Our God is victorious, even over death--physically, mentally and spiritually.


Just recently I told a friend of mine that I longed for simplicity. I wanted to live where there was very little physically for me to hide behind. From make-up and clothes to computers and television I wanted to be materially stripped down to a minimum.


One day God said to me, "It is good to live simply. What is more is that I want you to be stripped down mentally and emotionally so that you are open to me spiritually. And do not worry about how this will happen. Trust me. Trust is the beginning of vulnerability." The moment God put that word upon my heart I was in pain. I'd been vulnerable, especially as a child. Here I am twenty-two, a college graduate, at the top of my game (or so I thought), and I am supposed to be vulnerable again. It felt as if God were asking me to strip down naked and stand in public. I realize now though that even when I was protecting myself I wasn't safe. I was able to hurt myself.  Furthermore, I locked God out isolating myself from His healing power.


All of this is not to say that I will never be hurt. Pain is a reality of life--after all, we are only promised a cross. What it does mean though, is that I am open to a real healing and genuine relationship with Christ. A relationship in which I can be real and honest about who I am, where I am at and God will meet me there.


God is helping me to reclaim my natural self. The one who has no earthly adornment, but is open is to being loved simply for being. The one who does not work for a place in her Father's kingdom and is open to both the giving and receiving of love regardless of accomplishment, education or achievement.  The one who can be still and know, who can sit and by God's grace be moved to stand and walk.


God has not forgotten my heart of service. The strength in Jesus ministry was not in His power per say, but in His vulnerability. Being vulnerable may be risky, but trusting God and being vulnerable to God is real and allows one to truly serve others as Christ. This is not to say that I expect that I will never be hurt. I live on the earth. The same earth upon which the Messiah was crucified. BUT, Christ vulnerability, His sacrifice, gave way to redemption.


I have sought redemption through my own work and protection, but that has left me in chains. I am no longer afraid to leave my prison garb behind to be clothed in the arms of God the Father. It is in this place of vulnerability that the reality of Christ's redeeming act becomes real. It is at this point where God can help me enter into a life that is truly led by the Spirit.

Hope

"People who claim to be without options are in actuality lacking hope."

Imagine you are in a room with 17 high school students ranging in age from 14-19 on the southside of Seattle. There is a tension in the room that is layered with sadness--at times it almost even reaks of distrust. When you look into their eyes it is at times as if one can see their spirit sinking into their bellies. It pains you from the inside-out; so much so that you can't help but want to reach deep down within them and pull them out, but YOU can't.

So, you pray. You ask God, "I can see that they are hurting. Often I hurt both for them and with them. LORD, please the violence. Please stop the killing. It seems that every time another young person physically dies another experiences a spiritual death. What can I do LORD?"

The LORD says, "Fellowship. Talk. Morn together. You all have lost. You all must weep. The you all MUST rise up together in my name and Spirit."

So, I call them together. They think that we are going to have usual days debrief. (They are the staff for the Urban IMPACT summer day camp.) Instead, I say, "Circle up. Closer. No, closer." They are some what anxious. I can hear the murmurs, "What the hell are we doing?"

I say, "I know that we are hurting. God knows that we are hurting. We need to talk about this. I am going to step out of the circle and you all start where you want to--with whatever you want to talk about."

They start...


A voice says, "You got to respect someone who is a drug dealer or a stripper. They pry feel as if they have no other option."

This was where they chose to start.

The conversation went for over an hour after work. Typically they are running out the door five minutes before work is over.

At the end of the conversation we concluded: "People are never without options. We always have some sort of choice, but it is when we are hopeless that we cannot see the options."

You can be so profound.

The Circuitous Route

"The shortest distance and quickest route between two points is a straight line, but the circuitous is never wrong."

This is indeed a revelation.  One in which I did not come to on my own.  In fact, I have often  worried that my inability to take the "straight line" is a fault, a disadvantage, the path to my inevitable demise and destruction.  In a sense I was right and yet entirely naive and ignorant to reality.  My inability to follow the straight line has indeed led to a destruction, but the question to be asked is, "What has been destroyed?"

It is most certainly not me, or at least not me in my entirety or what is truly me.  Being that I am a Follower of the Way, an attempting Imitator of the Lord Jesus Christ I believe that I have been born into sin and yet set free by the blood of the Lamb.  The old has gone, destroyed.  The new has come.  No longer am I bound by the chains of death.

For years I listened to Satan's lies.  He is indeed the Father of Lies.  From birth I had forgotten my one true God, but God has not forgotten me.  For so long did I dress in the rags of facade, clothed in the bastard garmets of sin and deceit, but even so I was not forgotten.  God forever knows my name.  God forever knows my face even when it is cloaked in darkness--for as the Psalmist says even the darkness is as light to God.  I am a Child of the Light, a Daughter of Zion, an unworthy heir, but none the less welcomed home as a prodical son.

Being in the world and yet not of it there are times when confusion is the result.  Feelings of being lost or lonely, feelings of purposelessness, feelings of fear and doubt, but those are not of God--they are of the world.  While in the world we are in tension.  Our spirit and flesh are at war within us.  We seek to be free because we are free and yet we must be reminded of grace and remember that earth is short and life is eternal.  We must hold in tension the kingdom now, freedom from fear and doubt and the kingdom to come, freedom eternal.

It has been a circuitous route to such knowledge, but even more it has been following the ideas the world labels as folly and non-linear that have led to belief for me.  I have had to feel the weight of title and the wave of success to understand the beauty of simple gifts.  I had to make mistakes and bleed the consequences to experience truth.  A truth that heals.  To heal a pussy wound one must first scrape and dig out the infection for the healing process to begin.  In reality the circuitous route is not the truth, but it is a way for the hard headed of the world to be re-acquainted with the truth.  

The fact of the matter is it is neither the straight-line nor the circuitous route that matters.  In the end the truth is there is nothing you nor I can do to earn the Love of God.  There is nothing we can do to procure forgiveness.  There is nothing we can do to obtain our own freedom.  It is by grace alone that we receive this gift of true life.  It is by grace alone that we, who are indeed unworthy, will drink living water, and it is because of grace that we can choose to take the circuitous route, that we choose to take the straight-line, that we can even choose to stand still or even sit in the embrace of our loving God and encounter a healing truth without even moving.

I will admit I still cannot stand nor sit in the midst of such love, but at least I know that regardless of my path it is not earned nor bought by my actions but instead is freely given.  The Lord will meet us where we are at no matter our route and His love remains the same enduring forever.

So it is not so much the route that matters, but the truth revealed in the midst.  For the saying is not the route shall set you free, it is the TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE.