Vulnerable

I had never known anybody to base their relationship with God on God’s vulnerability to us and our responsibility, therefore, to care for His Heart.  My friend laid out his heart on the matter, and at first I couldn’t bear the concept.  I make so many mistakes everyday, in every way … in how I relate to people, in how I deal with my own emotions, in how I trust and don’t trust God. Thinking of God being affected by all of my emotions, words and actions brought up guilt I could not carry. I placed the concept at God’s feet. There, He showed me how His vulnerability to all of mankind’s evil, upon the Cross, brought healing, restoration and atonement to all who would receive His Gift.

But then he showed me more…

… gratitude, awe, trust, belief, faith, tears …

God is ultimately vulnerable. Everything that happens in all of creation touches Him through and through, without restriction. He sees, knows, feels. Everything. All of His creation is always impacting Him. He is available at all times. It is intrinsic to his nature. He is always sensitive to how each of us, how each part of His creation, feels, how each responds to Him.

His vulnerability to love enhances its power. His vulnerability to evil destroys its power. Upon the Cross, Yeshua’s vulnerability was Satan’s undoing. Tempted by evil, but influenced by good, He conquered the one who tried to conquer Him. When we fully, vulnerably, hand all our evil over to Him, it disappears into love. He knocks, within His gift of vulnerability, and waits. He waits, within His openness of heart, and desires.  His waits to conquer us. With His Love. I open the door. Welcome in, Lord.

God takes me by the hand: 

…I realize how my limited vulnerability to Him produces limited results.  Oooooo … conviction…

He continues to teach me… about me, about us

Every cell in my body is vulnerable to every other cell, each responds to the needs of my body as a whole, working together, through my heart and my head, to bless my whole body with health and wholeness. As Messiah’s Body, when we do what our HEAD, Yeshua, tells us to do, we bless His Body with health and wholeness.  When we behave errantly, invulnerable to His leading, we give His Body an auto-immune disease, rejecting what we are meant to support!

God stepped back and waited …

I began to understand.  Because You love me, You choose to feel what I need, to know what I need, to respond to me and bring me into wholeness in You. What a privilege!  What an honor! Thank You, Abba! Amen.

He continued …

Because we are each unique parts of God’s expression, we are bound by God-given distinctions. I cannot fly like an Eagle. An eagle cannot think like me.

My eye doesn’t try to walk. My feet don’t try to see. When my eyes see something interesting, my feet respond by walking me towards it. But they don’t get their purposes mixed up and try to behave like each other. When Yeshua was vulnerable to us on the Cross, He remained true to Who He Was, and that is how He blessed us.  

Wanting to be something greater, smaller, or different than we are, out of pride, emotional wounding or lack of self-knowledge, is like having cells that want to do “their own thing” and not contribute to my whole being. They invalidate and destroy. Disharmony. Cancer. The world today. Hurting people.

He waited …

When I was vulnerable to evil, I was consumed by it.  I did not remain true to myself.I became part of the problem, not part of the solution.  It took God’s vulnerability to me, upon the Cross, in the nitty gritty of my own life, to show me my error and set me free. 

And He continued …

Satan established the first artificial, non-supportive, boundary when he wanted to be something GOD had not intended him to be. He separated Himself from the wholeness of God’s creation by not being vulnerable to his Head. His actions created an eternal separation, a boundary of protection, of rejection, not of love. His very desire thrust him out of God’s Presence. A pariah. A Pandora’s box. Thus, he is the originator of boundaries that exclude rather than contribute. His boundaries create division, limit love, and perpetuate the fall. God’s boundaries create harmony, expansiveness, creativity and uplift.

Such a depth of gratitude began to overtake my being.  How blessed we are that He created us to need Him, that He created Himself, if I can say it that way, to need us. How blessed that vulnerability is intrinsic to who we truly are, in Him, through Him, from Him, and to each other.  What an awesome privilege to be married to such a vulnerable, strong, tender, beyond control, amazing God! What an awesome privilege to learn to live from within His vulnerability! I want His boundaries that give me my purpose in life, that show me where I am most needed, that inspire me to be a vulnerable gift to others from within my uniqueness. I want to be vulnerable to the wonder of God, to the specificity of who He created me to be, to my position within the Whole of His Body.

He smiled …

“Now,” He said, “You understand My vulnerability and you will not run from it. You will not feel ashamed of yourself, but convicted and inspired in Me, to become more and more like Me, to know My vulnerability within yourself. Let Me be an example to you. Learn to be wide-open to Me in all circumstances.  Never run ahead of me or behind me.  Don’t try to get things done ahead of Me, or without Me.  But WAIT UPON ME, and I will direct your steps, every single time.  Whether you actually hear My words or not, I will direct you…”

“Thank You, LORD, for all this vulnerability.  Thank You that You are bigger than all of this, so much bigger than all of this, but that you choose to be so vulnerable to us in order to love us and serve us.  Thanks, Abba!”

“And now, My friend, as you see the hardness of heart, the ugliness of soul, in those around you and in the world, you will respond with more tenderness of heart.  Remain vulnerable and open.  At all times.  I love you and I will be with you.  Shalom.”

“Dear YHVH, I choose to live my life honoring You, my Head. I choose to live my life within the vulnerability of Your Heart. I choose to live out the unique purposes You, O LORD, have set for me.”

“And I choose to remain Your rudder at all times, so you will always know how to respond.  I will remain with you always.”  

As I stood on top of the Temple Mount at Tisha b’Av and watched the passionate yearning of the Jewish worshipers and the passionate rage of the Palestinian rock throwers, God showed me how much He loves us all.  He is vulnerable to each of us. He is blessing each of us. Jews and Palestinians alike. If He did not give us breath, we would die.  If He did not give us food, we would die. He loves us and cares for us.  How could we be more blessed?

Shalom, dear friends, and much love …