Vulnerable
May 16
Vulnerable-this word popped up in two different studies I was doing last week. Merriam-Webster defines it as: capable of being physically or emotionally wounded; open to attack or damage (vulnerable to criticism); easily hurt or harmed physically, mentally or emotionally.
In Nancy Leigh DeMoss' Divine Design study she writes: "Over the years, I have discovered that ever God given strength, if not perpetually safeguarded and surrendered to His control, can become an area of weakness and failure. It is precisely in the realm of those strengths that the Enemy often targets us for attack-knowing that if he can bring us down at those points, we will be more likely to concede territory to him in other areas. In that sense, a person's greatest strength may also be their greatest area of vulnerability."
Beth Moore writes: "Whenever we get deeply involved we open ourselves up to anguish and anxiety. There are people we love so much it hurts. We open ourselves to attack or damage."
During the same week one of my very favorite soul sisters wrote of an attack she and her husband were under. The initiation of this attack came from someone they had been in close relationship within the body of believers. Their vulnerability to love like this has left them wounded.
2 Peter 2:12-14 (I think this is The Message)
These people are nothing but brute beats, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end. Their evil will boomerang on them. They're so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight. They're obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable should they come upon. Their speciality is greed, and they experts at it. Dead souls!
Whew! I'd never read that one before and there was that word a third time. So, I asked the Lord, "What's the deal with the word vulnerable showing up three times in two days?" He showed me how an area of strength had placed me in a position of vulnerability. I need to put on my big girl panties and stand firm in the faith, recognizing my enemy the devil is on the prowl!
