Fully known and fully loved
Risk being vulnerable, experience forgiveness, and dive deep into relationships
Have you ever felt nervous in face-to-face social interactions with a certain person or a certain group of people? Are you scared of being embarrassed and judged when speaking in public?
Do we sometimes feel the need for approval or admiration, and when we don’t get it we wallow in fear of being less worthy of affection? Are you afraid of being rejected or not being chosen? Or of being known and not loved?
To some degree, all of us would answer “yes” to these questions.
Most of our greatest anxieties and fears are relational in nature. This is because relationships, no matter who you are and where you are, proved to be the most valuable thing in life. Not achievements, not wealth, not security but relationships. God said that is not good for us to be alone. (Genesis 2:18) We are made for relationships. We are made to love and to be loved.
How can we navigate through these realities in order for us to build deeper relationships and experience greater love and joy? How can our relationships speak of Christ’s love to our own lives and the lives of others around us?
The fear of being vulnerable
Being in a culture and society where independence and strength are pursued and celebrated, our tendency is to move away from the risk of being vulnerable. Vulnerability is perceived as fragility or weakness. We do not want the depths of our hearts to be under scrutiny and attention. Maybe because of our vulnerability we have been wounded by criticisms and rejection in the past so we build walls around our lives. Walls where our true and vulnerable self can take refuge. Walls where we can hide the bad and put only the best parts on the façade. Walls that shield us from being wounded.
Social media has provided that safe space for us. It is not the only one but it is the easiest to access and manage nowadays. We can be known only to the extent of the image we choose to project. May it be a version of ourselves that we love or the version that we believe people will love. But we all know deep down that relationships built under these circumstances are shallow. We often want to stay at the safe space of superficiality and rarely take a dive into the depths of our hearts. We are missing out on the best God has in store for us in relationships.
Our social media habits, if we are not careful, could be the manifestation of the relational fears and anxieties we have deep in our hearts. The root of these anxieties is our innate desire to be fully known and fully loved, yet because we know, at least subconsciously, that no online or real-life connection will fulfill that desire, we cower in superficiality.
Fully known and Fully loved
Christ knows everything about us (Psalm 139:1–4). We can never hide from His eyes. In Him, we are fully exposed (Hebrews 4:13). And yet He loves us fully (Romans 5:8). The fullness of His love is shown in Him being vulnerable to the point of death, even death on the cross (Philippians 2:8). He was wounded for our sins. (Isaiah 53:5)
In Christ, our desire to be fully known and fully loved has already been fulfilled. There are no walls that could withstand His fully knowing and fully loving us.
Risk being vulnerable, experience forgiveness
Christ desires for us to be vulnerable. After all, He created us to have a sense of vulnerability. He wants us to admit to Him, to ourselves and to the people around us, that we are imperfect, broken, and in desperate need of salvation.
Being vulnerable to Christ and to our community opens up a way for us to experience acceptance and redemption through His forgiveness — the language and reality which beautifully intertwine the truth of his knowing and loving us. This language of love flows from ourselves then to our relationships.
Being vulnerable to the people we love encourages intimacy. Relationships that are shallow and broken can now be deepened and restored in Christ. Relationships shall then become life-giving in the process.
Being fully known yet fully loved is so amazing that it’ll compel us to know and love Jesus. This pursuit shall overflow to our relationship with others, being able to risk being vulnerable, experience forgiveness, and dive deep into our relationship with others.
Christ gave His all to us. He risked everything so we can experience the fullness of His love. We are to give our best, our all to others as He did. It’s a risk to love, to be vulnerable. We will get wounded but it will be worth it.