Many of you know I’m, typically, one of the most open, real people you’ll meet. I absolutely love honesty…just being up front and real with any and everything. I think it’s essential in most all relationships. I love the same quality in authors I read. Donald Miller is one of those authors. I know many of you have read Blue Like Jazz. Some people love Miller, and some not so much. Either way, I find him incredibly real and raw in this book. He talks about things and admits things I think many of us are afraid to admit. Vulnerability is such a button for emotions. It can make you feel as free as a bird and as uncomfortable as sitting next to a live snake all at the same time. I love it.
In this book, Miller talks about vulnerability in a horizontal and vertical direction. Vertical in the sense we are built to connect with people. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. This requires we take down walls, and allow ourselves to be naked and bare to others. This can be a really frightening thing, especially if we have experiences in our past that have ended with rejection and/or hurt. At the same time, we have an even deeper need to connect with the one true God of this world. This is the horizontal aspect. Here’s where authenticity is vital, and often times most difficult. For those who have been around the church scene for any significant amount of time, you have probably been surrounded by many of these people, many “white-washed tombs.” In fact, I could have been one of them at some point. They look great on the outside, but dead and empty on the inside. Too afraid to question or have doubts. The thing is, God already knows we are having those doubts. He’s just waiting for us to be real with Him, and lay it all out there. He loves when we do this. It’s as if He’s saying, “Finally, something I can work with. Finally what you’re really thinking.” The most freeing times in my walk are the times I’m having an completely real and open talk with God. Baring it all: anger, sadness, disappointment, the list goes on. So, I ask you and myself...how honest have you been with your Maker lately? Trust that He is bigger then all our doubts, fears, anger, sadness, and any other emotion you can think of...
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