Today, we are on psalm 31 and in it, David is extremely vulnerable about his feelings at the time. In verses 9 and 10 he says, “Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” When I think about what it means to be a man, different competing notions come to mind.

I sometimes feel like being a man means not showing emotion. It means to never struggle with anything and not let life phase you. I picture a guy that never needs any help and seems impervious to life’s trials and demands. He seems to either not have emotions, or to be so detached from them that they hardly phase him. He may feel fear, but he doesn’t show it. Obstacles are no match for him and he never has to lean on anyone. That is one of the images I picture…but it’s a lie.

David was one of the mightiest warriors that history has ever known. His inaugural victory was beheading the giant, Goliath and the rest as they say, is history. He led the Israelite army to victory after victory and even his mightiest foes could not stand against him. But alongside the warrior, there is another equally true picture of David that we must take into consideration. We can’t ignore David the poet or David the intimate friend of God. David was extremely vulnerable about his struggles and weaknesses. In fact, it was in the rawness of his weakness that God met him and endowed him with the strength to overcome.

Being a man is not about being emotionless or stoic. The mightiest men throughout the pages of scripture were those that were honest about their weaknesses and sought after their God to carry them when human strength couldn’t. My hope is that we will move further and further away from the anemic cultural views of manhood and embrace the compelling vision that scripture paints….men who know their weaknesses and who choose to lean wholeheartedly on their God.