How do you all do with vulnerability? My job sometimes "requires" me to be vulnerable in front of a group of people and it is always a bit humbling. There is this tempatation to want to seem all together in every way. And yet... that just doesn't seem real to me. It's tough to show that you are human, that you have emotions... that life is not alway perfect... and yet isn't that the truth for all of us?
And yet, how often we hide our pain from each other.
If you read Exodus 34:29-35 it is the story of moses coming off the mountain and covering his face with the veil. Okay, go and read it, I will wait..."
You done?
Okay good.
Now, why did Moses cover his face? For the longest time I thought it was because Moses was such a holy guy and was glowing so much, that people couldn’t stand to see God’s glory. Like the brightness was too much for them and Moses was protecting them.
And that’s exactly what Moses wanted them to think.
But, Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:13, tells us what was actually going on. Moses meets God on Mount Sinai, gets the Ten Commandments-- comes back down, and his face glowed. His face was radiant. He’d been with God. And apparently, people were impressed by this. And word spread amongst the Israelites…Moses has a shining face. When people looked at him, they would say, “Wow! He is special. He’s radiant. He was close to God.”
And then one morning Moses woke up, and looked in the mirror while he was shaving or something. And he noticed that his face was not glowing quite so much as it had the day before. The glow was starting to fade. And he knew when people saw this; they would be a little less impressed with him. He wouldn’t be quite so special anymore.
So in 2 Corinthians 3:13, we are told that Moses put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at him while the radiance was fading away.
Isn’t that interesting? Paul tells us that he put a veil over his face because he didn’t want them to see that he wasn’t as radiant as he used to be. He wanted them to think that he was more spiritually radiant than he really was...
Paul goes on to say a wonderful thing. He goes on to say that, because we have the promise of God’s love and acceptance through what Jesus Christ has done for us, he says, “Therefore, we are very bold. We can live with unveiled faces”—no concealing, no masks, no hiding, no makeup. Before people -- and before God.
Do you live like that?
Where do you most struggle living with an unveiled face?
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5 comments:
My life has been a little less than perfect too! Now that's an understatement! Being vulnerable with someone requires a great deal of trust, both in them to keep your trust and in God to be there when they don't. Because in all human relationships, there will be times where trust is broken, where sin creeps in and selfishness prevails.
As someone who's a bit of an extravert, I talk to a lot of people, many of whom I consider friends. But I only share my deepest thoughts with a select group of these friends - mostly those whom I've grown to trust over time and through experience.
Does that mean I'm not honest with others about myself? Well, I don't really try to hide myself from them, but I'm also not advertising my faults to them. Is that being veiled? Perhaps. But this being unveiled takes time and requires discovery. Even with God, it takes time to discover who he really is. Does that mean that he's hiding from us? I don't think so, only that as our relationship deepens, so does our intamacy and understanding of each other. Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be.
apart from the extroversion, i agree with much of what jared has stated. i think there is a distinct difference between putting on a veil and choosing not to share. if some random person asks me how i'm doing, i'm probably not going to go on and on about the struggles of my life. among other things, that seems unwise. on the other hand, if a trustworthy friend looks me in the eye and asks me, 'so, really. how are you doing?', and i tell them everything if fine when it most certainly is not... this is a problem.
i was going somewhere with this but i've gotten distracted. at any rate, both 1) vulnerability without trust and 2) trust without vulnerability, seem highly foolish.
I enjoy, even crave, being "unveiled", but I find that most people can't handle it. I prefer to just "be myself" which sometimes means I'm crude and blunt. I find lots of people take this personally, when all I'm really trying to do is cut the crap and get to the core of what makes me/us tick.
I agree that trust is key. I just wish that we could interact this way while giving each other the benefit of the doubt. I wonder if I give others the benefit of the doubt...
I like what Patrick said about the benefit of the doubt. I believe that trust is both given and earned. And I think that it has to be given - at least a little bit - before it can be earned because trust is earned by proving that one is worthy of the trust placed in them. That's what we do in relationship, we give a little trust and see how it works out. If things go well, we give a little more.
But I've had a few relationships where the initial (and often subsequent) giving of trust is very generous. That can move a relationship along very quickly, but it certainly comes with a great deal of risk. In those times, I recall always feeling on the edge of the amount of risk I could bare, which is a rather uncomfortable place to be - kinda like leaning over the edge a steep cliff. But the rewards for doing so can be amazing, and several of my best friendships were formed this way. I heard somewhere, "to live without risk is to risk not living." I really think that's true and very applicable to building close relationships.
There was a time where a lot of people thought I was pretty hot stuff in a spiritual sense...maybe a smidgen of what Moses felt. And now, I'm not nearly as acclaimed as I once was...I'm in a very different environment...very different chapter in life. But when I interact with the people who were around when I was Jessi Dobos, Discipler Extraordinaire, I feel tempted to talk about things other than myself and to make conversation less personal. I try really hard to just be me and let them see who I am now, for better or worse, but the temptation to deter them from digging is great. I am afraid they will see a less exciting, less passionate, less powerful, less yielded, less courageous person.
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