I believe that the unwillingness to be vulnerable is one of the biggest issues plaguing your life.
Allow me to explain... I have struggled with pride my entire life. When I was in elementary and middle school I thought I was some kind of "Super Christian." I had a large knowledge of the Bible and would use it to impress adults. I loved the "You're gonna do big things for God" compliments that I would typically receive from them. By freshman year, I decided to attend a rough public school where I believed I could make a major impact for God. I left that school after Freshman year broken and defeated. I was ready to start fresh and had assumed that my pride would be gone. Unfortunately, it just took on another form. I spent the next two years of high school attempting to appear perfect on the outside while I was still very messed up on the inside from freshman year. It was senior year of high school that I realized the power of vulnerability, and God has truly worked a miracle in my heart.
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2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (NIV)
This is the verse that God has used to teach, convict, and sanctify me. In this passage Paul has a personal problem referred to as a "thorn in the flesh." The Bible does not provide the details to what his problem is, but we do know see that Paul has been pleading with God to remove it from him. What is profound is that God refuses to remove Paul's weakness so that Paul can understand the grace and power of God. How often do we focus on removing a weakness in our life rather than appreciating the grace of God as He continually forgives us?
Paul says that he gladly boasts in his weaknesses so that that power of Christ may be revealed through his testimony. If we want to become a true light of Christ we must be willing to share our weaknesses so that our influence spreads to the people who are struggling. The question becomes: Have we (like Paul) identified our weaknesses so that we even have the ability to boast in them?
If we do not know our weaknesses, we cannot share them. And if we are unwilling to share our weaknesses, then we cannot reveal God's grace in our lives. This is exactly why people believe the church is full of hypocrites. We pretend that we are perfect, but other people can see the faults in our lives. We must be willing to admit how broken we are to truly convey the beauty of the gospel. The last question we are presented with in this passage is: Am I (like Paul) delighting in my weaknesses?
If we can comprehend the smallest part of what delighting in our weaknesses means, the grace of God in our lives becomes evident to all around us. The world flees from signs of weakness. We have been taught since birth to hate our weaknesses and destroy them. We can become radically separate from the world by experiencing joy in our flaws. That is where God reveals Himself personally to us and to others. So what does vulnerability look like? Paul provides us an unbelievable example of one way in how he boasts in his weaknesses.
2 Corinthians 2:3-5
"I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power." (NIV)
So you may be wondering what happened to me when I became more vulnerable. First, I was amazed at how positively people reacted to me when I shared my fears and struggles. People were so much more inclined to share their own personal problems when I had already trusted them with mine. I formed some of the greatest friendships of my life senior year just from being real with people. The most important way that vulnerability affected my life was in dealing with pride. Many people started telling me that they used to not like me, but now they considered me as a good friend. It was discouraging at first to hear how my pride had turned people away, but it also was encouraging to see that I had changed and could restore some of those relationships.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (NIV)
Ultimately, when we are not willing to be vulnerable and admit that we are not perfect, we are denying the need for the grace of God and the true state of our sinful being. We discount the cost of the cross because we believe that we are inherently good. We corrupt the very message of the gospel. Everyday we wake up faced with the same decision of how vulnerable we are going to be. God is continually asking the same question of each of us:
Are you willing to be vulnerable for the sake of My glory?
