Overcoming Shame: A 9-Day Video SeriesSample

I know Jesus was talking about the cost of discipleship when he said, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25), but he was also making a psychologically profound statement about vulnerability at the same time. 

What Jesus was saying about your spiritual life, psychologists have discovered is just as true about your psychological life. The harder you try to defend yourself and hold on to who you think you are, the harder it is to find the true meaning of life. Only through surrendering your defensive view of yourself can you find genuine connection to God and others, and that is the only place the true meaning of your life can be found. 

Vulnerability is taking the risk to expose yourself emotionally. You will feel very uncertain while doing it, but there is no other path to the most meaningful experiences you will ever have. We were created for the purpose of connection to God and others, and vulnerability is the requirement for achieving that purpose. 

Vulnerability is the state in which we all come into the world. From the very first moments of your life, you were vulnerable, and how well you were able to connect to others around you while you were that vulnerable determined how you felt about yourself then, and it continues to define your sense of self today.