Are modern women prepared for radical vulnerability before the Lord?

As a female Christian, I feel a subtle pressure to muscle up. There’s an energy in the room that things would be better if women were in the driver’s seat. Biblically speaking, women as a sex are physically weaker (1 Peter 3:7), something many of us deny and battle to reform. Imagine, a push to make what God has designed better. Are stronger, less vulnerable things of greater value? Is a brick more precious than a gemstone? Is this even biblical? When Christ came to this world a babe in a manger, was there a being mighty enough to outweigh him? Perhaps our vulnerability as women, instead of being a hindrance, is an advantage too easily dismissed.

Created vulnerable 

Modernity cringes at vulnerability. Countless inventions have been formed to protect us, like the ever-stronger passwords required to guard our cyber identities. Yet, the fact of human frailty is inescapable; from Eden, we’ve been created vulnerable. Adam and Eve were completely uncovered, and God’s presence sheltered them. When sin entered, he gave them animal skins as they were left vulnerable, banished from the garden. I wonder how soon they made weapons to protect themselves from becoming prey in the wilderness. They were mentally vulnerable to the lies and leading of the serpent, spiritually vulnerable to the vengeful assignments of fallen angels. All humanity has been vulnerable to sin. The flesh is so weak; billions have lived through history, yet only Jesus accomplished it sinlessly. Paul exhorts us to put on the full armour of God (Ephesians 6), for it is his covering, not our own, protecting us in spiritual battles. Imagine, the utter helplessness of one human against the raging power of supernatural armies.

Sinners must admit their vulnerable state to realise their need for salvation; Christians embrace their vulnerable state, admitting their need for the Holy Spirit. How were the earliest Christians found as they prayed in the upper room at Pentecost, these followers of a bizarre and controversial man who’d called himself God, been publicly crucified, rumoured to have been resurrected and then physically lifted up in the air to heaven? Wanted for annihilation by blood-thirsty religious Jews, like Saul of Tarsus, and the afeared Romans alike, they were sitting ducks! Huddled together in a room without weaponry, reinforcements and only the recourse of fervent, needful crying out to God, the disciples stayed there, waiting, in intense vulnerability – and were met by the same outpouring of the Holy Spirit which today seals us, in our needfulness.

Examples of vulnerability in the Bible

What about notably vulnerable women in the Bible? Esther succumbed to the terrible odds for herself and the Israelites. Facing utter annihilation at the hand of a murderous enemy, the Queen saw her vulnerable situation and raised it with further weakening, through prayer and fasting (Esther 4:16). Samuel’s mother, Hannah, had nothing left to offer in her heartrending circumstances. Not only barren in a time when the fertility of a woman was equated with her value, and bullied by a rival to her station, Hannah was constantly reminded of the harsh reality of being locked into a domestic situation that wasn’t her desire. If her husband, Elkanah, was alive in Instagram times, I could picture the meme of her slapping him in response to his arguably insensitive comment “Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8). Yet Hannah isn’t recorded responding to him with a snarky retort about his cluelessness or coming to blows with her bitterly irritating rival. She delivered herself as closely as possible to the presence of the Lord and poured out her heart, soul and tears there, a picture of such extreme emotional vulnerability, Eli the priest mistook her for drunk (1 Samuel 1:10-16). God blessed both these women in their helplessness.

What about Jesus? In the Garden of Gethsemane, facing levels of travail and torment no human could imagine, Jesus displayed complete vulnerability. He didn’t resort to the latest trends in self-care to de-stress; he was so stressed, he sweated drops of blood in physical agony over what was before him (Luke 22:44). He didn’t come up with a five-point plan on how to overcome his circumstances; in fact, at Peter’s admonishment to avoid the cross, Jesus rebuked him as Satan (Matthew 16:23). Jesus leaned in to his vulnerable state. Crying out to his Father, expressing his desire not to go through with it, yet submitting to the call to which he was appointed as an angel strengthened him from on high (Luke 22:43). What death could be more vulnerable than that of the cross? Completely laid bare, hanging, naked and exposed for all to recoil over. Jesus showed us that those who want to be first in his kingdom need to make themselves last, not jockey for position. We need to spread our arms open wide, embrace vulnerability before God, pick up our crosses and follow him. 

Embracing our vulnerability

This is the high call we all have as believers, especially women. Maybe there are more female believers because of our innate vulnerability. To walk by the Spirit belies that we cannot do life without reliance on our relationship with God, without intervention from heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Are modern women prepared for radical vulnerability before the Lord? Is the world we live in or the Church in which we gather spurring us on toward a posture of complete dependence on him? Are our lives built up for personal equipping and self-sufficiency, or have we reached a place of embracing that we are poor in spirit?

Like men, apart from God we as women can’t do, offer or bring any good work to his table. When we’ve accepted this, we’ll find Jesus waiting there, a buffet of bounty prepared before us. Perhaps God designed men stronger to gift them an opportunity to conform to Christ’s image by serving the weaker. Do we do all of us a disservice by desiring like-strength instead of embracing our ensuing vulnerability? Can we allow ourselves to need serving, trusting God as our strong tower when men miss the mark? Do any of us even remember what that looks like? Faith, it’s a very vulnerable thing.