Brokenness is the antidote to shame.”- Dan Allender and Tremper Longman, The Cry of the Soul (1994)
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”- Psalm 34:18 (ESV)
As Sara Hagerty continues Chapter 5 of Unseen, she admits she doesn’t relish thinking of herself as vulnerable. Therefore, she explains:
“Really, who doesn’t want [to] be an invulnerable? We’ve bought into the lie that exposing our hearts — in even the smallest of ways — brings only pain. and we take that lie into our exchanges with God.”
However, Ms. Hagerty notes, God sees beauty in vulnerability. She adds that He moves in as well as near when we’re vulnerable. Thus, we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable to God not only in big crises but in morning-after embarrassments. As a result, God heals all the continents of our hearts. Also, we grow in personal, intimate understanding of Him.
In contrast, it’s impossible for God to penetrate an invulnerable soul. But, those who turn to God and hide their shamed faces in His chest hear His heartbeat. In addition, God welcomes our most vulnerable selves because He (a) witnesses every unseen moment of our lives and (b) knows what it’s like to be vulnerable.
In The Letters of C. S. Lewis, the famed author explains why Jesus needed to be vulnerable. C. S. Lewis writes:
“God could, had he pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who let no sigh escape him. Of his great humility he chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane. . . . If he had been incarnate in a man of immense natural courage, that would have been for many of us the same as his not being incarnate at all.”
Today’s question: How do you seen brokenness as the antidote to shame? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The nexus of hiddenness and vulnerability”
