The inseparable twins …

Love and vulnerability are inseparable twins.

Those who want and need someone to love them make themselves vulnerable. To love them, we must step into their vulnerability which, in turn, makes us vulnerable. Pastor and author, Timothy Keller, describes this necessary process like this:

In a real world of relationships, it is impossible to love people with a problem or a need without in some sense sharing or even changing places with them. All real life-changing love involves some form of this kind of exchange … Imagine you come into contact with a man who is innocent, but who is being hunted down by secret agents or by the government or by some other powerful group. He reaches out to you for help. If you don’t help him, he will probably die, but if you ally with him, you — who were perfectly safe and secure — will be in mortal danger. This is the stuff that movie plots are made of. Again, it’s him or you. He will experience increased safety and security through your involvement, but only because you are willing to enter into his insecurity and vulnerability.

We cannot fully love someone from the margins. Real love and care for a person requires us to step into their lives in an obvious, vulnerable manner. That’s the kind of blatant, vulnerable love the Apostle Paul speaks of when writing to the Christians in Corinth …

“Oh, dear Corinthian friends! We have spoken honestly with you, and our hearts are open to you. There is no lack of love on our part, but you have withheld your love from us. I am asking you to respond as if you were my own children. Open your hearts to us!” 2 Corinthians 6:11-13.

This act of opening our hearts, as Paul calls for, is like the human equivalent of a molting process. Pastor Peter Scazzero illustrates this process with the following story …

In order to grow, lobsters have to rid themselves of their old, hard, protective shell and grow a new, larger one. This process of shedding an old shell is called molting. They do this about twenty-five times in the first five years of life and once a year after they become adults.

It is an ugly, messy process. Under the pressure, the old, hard, protective shell cracks. Then the lobster lies on its side, flexes its muscles, and pulls itself from the cracked shell. For a short time — between the leaving of the old shell and the hardening of a new one — the lobster is naked, feeling very vulnerable to the elements.

To honestly, authentically love others, we must crack open and come out of our hard, crusty outer shell and make ourselves vulnerable and less “secure” as we step into the vulnerability and insecurities of others. It’s this mutual exposure that demonstrates a genuine willingness to trust and connect, something which really cannot be done from behind a shield.

Both steps — that of pulling ourselves out of our shells, and being willing to step into the insecurities and vulnerability of someone else — may tempt us to fear and trepidation, but making such a leap into the life of another like this conveys real love in all its beautifully exposed simplicity.

Have you taken the twins of love and vulnerability into your relationships? Or are you still cowering behind a shield?

Scotty