Craving Community - How the Gospel Helps You Cultivate Faithful FriendshipsНамуна

The closest of friends practice vulnerability. They take the risk of being known by one another. While you do not need to feel pressure to open up fully to everyone you might call your friend, there should be a select few with whom you can experience richer friendship by being willing to be open about your life. Vulnerability requires the willingness to listen and the willingness to speak. You may be tempted and content to listen to the struggles of others without ever sharing your own. However, you were not meant to bear the struggles of others without someone bearing yours with you.

For believers, one of the most effective ways to practice vulnerability is to confess your sin to one another. James 5:16 refers to confessing the sin that causes illness. While not all sickness is a result of sin, there were clearly some that James was referencing for whom this was the case. However, even if your sin has not caused you physical illness, this does not mean that it has not done harm in your life and maybe even in the lives of your loved ones.

Though Jesus was without sin, He still practiced vulnerability with the ones He was closest to. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus agonized until His sweat turned to blood. The King of kings made no attempt to veil His anguish. He did not hide His humiliation. Jesus’s vulnerability, however, was not for His own sake, but for ours. He purchased for us the freedom to live openly before Him without shame.

Resist the temptation to keep your friendships at a surface level. When we are vulnerable with our friends, we invite God to move among us, drawing us closer to one another. Vulnerability allows us to forge deeper friendships. God is a safe place for us to land in our vulnerability. He also desires to give us safe places with our friends.

Is there sin you need to confess to a friend? Reach out to them and practice vulnerability by confessing openly and honestly with them.