The Open Courage of Vulnerability

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”

— Criss Jami

How might we know that we trust God in the midst of our relationships? One way we can know is by our courage to share our vulnerabilities with trusted others. When we are prepared to share our weakness, in making ourselves vulnerable, we show our strength; the strength of honest courage to cast upon our relationships the real ‘us’. When we offer our world the real ‘us’, we invite our world to reveal itself in the same vulnerability. Not all our offers are taken up, but invitations to courage are invitations to the abundant life.

Vulnerability is one of the biblical paradoxes. By sharing our weakness we show our strength. Strength is derived from trust. And God does not disappoint.

The Quality of the Best Relationships

Christian living in summation is the best of relationships, because it invites the community, living in all sorts of networks, to be relational by being vulnerable. This is the commitment of realness.

By practicing a trust in people by sharing our awkwardness, fears, embarrassments, and inadequacies, we practice trust in God. Where we can practice a trust in people we not only exercise courage in doing that, but we are blessed by God through the provision of the abundant life.

The abundant life is the reward for authenticity.

The abundant life is an investment in our lives and in the lives around us.

The abundant life is a state of giving back to God.

All in all Christians should be at the top of the pile regarding the quality of their relationships, being that they relate with the relational, living God, who lives in them, all around them, everywhere.

When we acknowledge the Presence of God we note with crucial endeavour the importance of being honest, because we stand in the court of God.

By being vulnerable with God, via the honesty of our prayer and life, noting that God is alive and relational, and being vulnerable with other people, we can be at home with ourselves.

If we feel no trepidation for judgment, we are free; we experience the abundant life.

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The abundant life is enjoyed when we have the courage to share our vulnerabilities. In trusting God and trusted others with knowledge of our weaknesses, we show courage and strength, and we redeem the abundant life.

Things go never better for those who are real about themselves.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.