 What does it mean to be vulnerable? Google says that vulnerability is the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed either physically or emotionally. I would say it's to be real, authentic, honest, transparent. But I believe we've exchanged this vulnerability, this authenticity, this transparency for a facade of togetherness and wholeness. By definition, authenticity and vulnerability leave us open to the possibility of being hurt, rejected, discouraged. So what many of us prefer, myself included, is to stay emotionally closed, to avoid the possibility of even being hurt or rejected. We often choose to be disconnected from other people because with connection comes an opportunity to be let down or hurt or rejected. And what I've seen in our hyper-individualistic society nowadays is that we have forgotten about the virtue of vulnerability. In the Bible, we are called to carry one another's burdens and to spur one another on in love and good deeds. We hear this calling and yet we're stuck asking the question, how do we actually begin to do that? First, I want to dive into what I think gets in the way, at least for me personally, what gets in the way of me being vulnerable with people and really having that lifestyle and that virtue of vulnerability in my life. And the first thing I think is an idea of self-preservation or self-protection. We understand that, and even by the definition of vulnerability, that when we are vulnerable, we leave ourselves open to being hurt. Like that's in the definition. So the idea of being able to be vulnerable with people, with friends, with family, in our communities, that's a scary thing. And I think many of us, myself included, prefer just to be like, you know what, I'm not interested in that. I'd rather just protect myself because, you know, leaving myself open to somebody saying, you know, something that might be hurtful to me or it might just not liking me as a person, that's too much for me to handle. So I'm just going to protect myself and I'm not going to be vulnerable in that way. Another thing I think is our pride. And this is definitely an issue in my life. When we think about being vulnerable and authentic, we have to be open about the areas of failure in our life, the areas of weakness in our life. We humans are weak. We are broken. We are, like, the Bible makes that clear. We're by no means perfect in any way, and yet we like to portray ourselves of having it together, of being whole, of having fulfilling, you know, lives of relationships, of not having doubts or fears. But vulnerability asks us to step out of that and be open and state, Yeah, this is my fear. This is actually what's going on. This is the area of struggle in my life. And that's a scary thing. And our pride, my pride doesn't, it doesn't want that. It wants to say, no, everything's fine. My life's great. I'm doing fantastic. But I need to, in order to really take on Jesus' words and say, carry one another's burdens and spur one another on. I need to be honest about that so other people can help me. And other people need to be vulnerable with me so then I can help them with that too. Because if we're all just closed off, we'll never actually be able to seek to fulfill this calling that we've been given. Another big thing that gets in the way is our comfort and how much we love comfort. We hate awkwardness. We hate tough conversations. We like, we hate things that make us uncomfortable. But when we are vulnerable with people, it can often be uncomfortable and awkward. But what I try to remember as I'm seeking to be vulnerable with people is just that God has called us out of our comfort into a courageous life. And courageous, we often think courageous means, oh man, I gotta, you know, do something heroic, or I gotta go to another country and smuggle Bibles and that's a courageous thing to do and that's very courageous. But the definition of courageous, this idea of getting out of our comfort and doing something that makes us uncomfortable. I think this is a big area where we can start looking and say, hey, I need to be courageous in this area. And as counterintuitive as it may seem, it takes courage to be vulnerable. And we need that courage as we're seeking to get past this idol of comfort. We love to be comfortable, but we know God has called us to something greater. Because of these things that get in the way, we often lose what is so core to our families, communities, friends. Those relationships that are intertwined there, we need to be able to relate. We need that authenticity. We need that vulnerability within those relationships. I truly believe that we need to be open about the stuff that really matters, the tough stuff, the awkward stuff. We need to be open about the struggles we have, the stuff that holds us down. When we're open about that stuff, that's when other people are going to be able to come into our lives and help us. God didn't design us to live this Christian life on our own. He designed us to live within community and by being vulnerable in those areas and being honest about the struggles that you have about the hurts that cut deep. When you're honest about those things and open and transparent and vulnerable and authentic and all those good scary words, I really believe that God's going to be able to use that in your life. To step into vulnerability is to say that my pride, my comfort isn't worth sacrificing the God-given community that I have around me. I want to be open to being vulnerable with people even though it's hard and it's really hard sometimes. But I want to be open to that because that's what God's called me to. And that's what glorifies God at the end of the day. Thanks for watching guys. I really appreciate it. Please like this video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to the YouTube channel because we put out new videos twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. Super big thanks to all my patrons on Patreon. You guys are awesome. Thank you for supporting the work that I do. And if you want to support me on Patreon, that would be super awesome. It would help me be able to do this, put more work into it and just build into God's kingdom. You can do that at patreon.com.com.com.com.com.com.com. There's all sorts of rewards on there that you can check out. Thanks for watching guys and I'll see you next time. Bye!