We all want to believe that we can
face anything on our own. Maybe God can
help a little, but we certainly don’t want to need other people. Like the toddler who wants to do everything
herself, we feel we have to prove to ourselves and to everyone else that we are
strong, brave, courageous, fierce, independent, self-sufficient, and grown-up. Besides, other people come with far too much
risk. We’ve been down that vulnerable
road before, and it didn’t end well.
The trouble is God didn’t create us
to operate as lone wolves. He placed within
us an innate need for deep, real, raw relationships – not just with Himself,
but with other people as well. Sin
certainly makes relationships hard. Some
of us have been shaken to our core by the lies, betrayal, cheating,
insensitivity, and manipulation dealt to us by the most unexpected of sources. Only a small taste of such use and abuse can
make the sheltered life of the lone wolf suddenly appear irresistibly
attractive.
If that is where you are, I am genuinely
so sorry for the very real and legitimate wounds that have brought you to this
place. However, can I encourage you not
to give up completely on allowing yourself to trust other people and to be open
with them? Obviously, we need to have
discernment with regard to whom we trust, and we don’t have to let the whole
world see our entire lives.
Nevertheless, I’ve struggled alone and I’ve struggled alongside others,
and I can tell you that the benefits of being transparent (even if it’s only with
a few) far outweigh the risks associated with being close to other sinful
people. Here are five of the benefits I
have found in allowing myself to be vulnerable:
1. Intimacy (Closeness)
Relationships
are built around knowing and being known.
The more we know, the tighter the bond between us becomes (even though
the risk also becomes much higher for greater hurts). Our unseen hearts, the truest depths of who
we are, long to be seen and understood. We
want close bonds. Close marriages, close
friendships, and other close family relationships cannot exist where one or
both of the parties refuse to be vulnerable.
If we hold back from being truly known by anyone else, we forfeit the closeness
that we so desperately crave.
2. Ability to Help Others
Being open about
your own struggles provides opportunities to make a difference in the lives of
those you may never have been able to otherwise. Often, a gesture of transparency and trust on
one side allows the other person to feel safe enough to reciprocate that
transparency and trust. Needs to which
you would have been completely oblivious suddenly become rich opportunities for
service.
3. Ability to Receive Help
When we’ve been
hurt, our natural instinct is to put up tall, foreboding, impermeable walls of
distrust. Those walls we build in an attempt
to protect ourselves from more pain end up becoming our prison. No one can come in to hurt, but no one can
come in to help either. Inadvertently,
we lock ourselves away alone with our struggles where they can slowly eat away
at us from the inside out – crippling us to the point where we don’t even
recognize who we are anymore.
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| Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10 |
4. Strength for Your Weakness
God made us with
our own unique set of strengths and weaknesses.
No one is strong in every area.
When we allow people into our hearts and lives, their strengths can
balance out our weaknesses so that we are stronger together than when we were
apart. We can learn from each other,
keep each other accountable, and spur each other on in the areas where we are
lacking.
5. Hope
When I’ve tried
to face trials alone, all I can see is the mountain in front of me and the fact
that God has not chosen to move it yet.
When I’ve walked alongside others in the same struggle as a result of
being transparent, I still see my own mountain, but I also see how God is
currently working and moving the mountains that my friends are facing. Seeing Him work in the lives of others gives
me hope that He hasn’t forgotten me and that I will eventually see His work in
my own life clearly.
I
am so thankful for the many people God has placed in my life in different times
and different places. Yes, I’ve been
hurt by some (just as I have hurt others), but those hurts cannot compare with
what I’ve gained by allowing people into my heart. I cannot adequately express just how valuable
many of those relationships have been to me.
To all those who have walked with me (and are currently walking with me)
in the darkness and the haziness that life sometimes brings, thank you for your
vulnerability, for your transparency, and for your trust. Thank you for being a safe place. To those
who are reading this who have never experienced what it is like to do life with
other people – real, raw, unfiltered life – please find your people! If you don’t know how, talk to God about
it. Talk to me about it. Talk to someone about it until you can find
your safe people. We need each other, whether
we like it or not.