I need people, and I believe it’s okay. God made it that way. We are one.
Well, we are to be, anyway. I am still learning how to be one in Christ.
A few short years ago I escaped a prison of my own making — for many hard years, afraid of showing people who I really was. Hiding the shame, the weakness, the insecurity — fearful if I showed myself unveiled they would decide they didn’t like what they saw. With heart closed — I walked, viewing God, at times, through the people I felt hurt by.
“God doesn’t love us any less when friendship turns out to be hard or lonely”.
(in)courage
I closed myself off from people. In doing so, I also closed myself off from God. The wall I built around my heart with bricks of disappointment, broken-trust and pain, also kept God out. The result was the decay of my soul. I could not cease the flow of love towards people and hinder the flow of love from people and expect to still have the flow of God’s Spirit in my life. My usefulness was gone.
“God is not a secret to be kept… Keep open house; be generous with your lives. BY OPENING UP WITH OTHERS, YOU’LL PROMPT OTHERS TO OPEN UP WITH GOD….” Matthew 5:16 (MSG) This scripture, these Words of Truth, freed an imprisoned soul. These are the words that still compel me to open-up heart-wide, and today, convince me to hit the PUBLISH button.
Vulnerability is the most valuable gift I have that I can offer a friend. What other treasure do I have to offer from myself, except an open heart? Not everyone wants to see someone transparent, but only someone that is transparent allows light to shine through, and if I am really living and walking in the Light, as He is in the Light, we have true, unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 1John 1:7
This desire for this true kind of fellowship with His daughters, my sisters, I bare my heart for. Sometimes courageously afraid I pour out and let Him pour in — knowing nothing is really lost that which we we offer to God — especially offered true. I never know what BIG thing God can do when I offer what SMALL thing I have in my hands?
Edited Re-post