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3 Reasons Men Must Practice Vulnerability
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- Updated Feb 03, 2023
This is for our men.
You’re told to be strong, so you exercise. You might implement a good exercise regimen earlier in life or later when you get the news that your cholesterol is high. You run and work out to stave off that dad-bod. Most men know that they are expected to be healthy and strong.
You’re also told to provide, so guided by your relationship with Jesus, you do your best at work, put in the hours, and rise through the ranks, bringing home the higher salaries needed to feed and care for more kids.
You are told to be present, so you try to not let watching sports use too much of your time. You make a conscious effort to play with your kids, join them in practicing sports, help them with schoolwork, and pray with them and for them.
You are told to put your marriage first and love your wife as Christ loves the church. You try and try. You control your lust, you control your anger, and you try to love.
You are also told to remain stoic. Emotions are bad. As you age, something seems off.
When you realize that your body is starting to show signs of aging, like sore knees, unforeseen aches, and unexpected surgeries, you want to be sad, but your natural reaction is to keep those emotions hidden.
Those wonderful children grow up and real situations arise; first girlfriends and boyfriends, first hurt feelings, hormone increase followed by some emotional and temperamental teenagers. Parenting all of the sudden seems out of your control, but you can’t show any sign of concern.
At work, the successful climb has brought with it more responsibility, other people to manage, and lots of stress. You couldn’t possibly allow your employees to see you stressed out or your family to see the toll work is truly taking on you.
As these other factors intensify, your marriage bears the majority of the tension.
You may try to bury any uncertain feelings and attempt to forget about them.
Something feels off.
Exercising the Emotional Muscle
Men, you are doing well at many things, but unfortunately, in our culture, most men have difficulty processing emotions. We can read self-help books and articles, but this cycle will only intensify. Our society teaches that showing emotion shows weakness. Combined with the expectation that we’re also supposed to excel at everything while hiding those emotions, men are pushed into a mold of stoicism at the detriment of our relationships and our personal growth. Men can lead, work, provide, protect, be engaged, and serve, but if our emotional muscle atrophies from neglect, everything suffers.
Top athletes have to cross-train for a reason. If they only focus on the movements dedicated to their sport, they will get very good at this movement only. If they neglect their base aerobic capacity, and core strength, their specified training suffers. If they cross-train and work on General fitness first for specialization, it only strengthens them for you. If we only work on external strengths while neglecting our emotional muscles or working on our hearts internally, eventually, everything suffers. Our Godly armor, if it has one weak spot, makes all of the armor weak.
We are social beings and tend to communicate with emotions more than logic. We should work on both our feelings and our thinking brain. Thinking eternally, we want our kids to have empathy and feel for those in need, but if we do not model that same empathy and emotional acuity, how can we expect the same of the next generation?
Vulnerability. Men recoil at the word. It has become synonymous with weakness, and it makes sense; the word literally means “the quality of being open to possible emotional or physical attack,” and who wants to be attacked?! Yet, Jesus, the best model of a man we have, modeled many emotions, not stoicism. Here are three reasons men should practice vulnerability.
1. The Bible explicitly tells us to be vulnerable.
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” James 5:16
We are not designed to carry the weight of life. Our minds, hearts, and physical bodies cannot sustain an earthly life of shouldering it all. Free your heart. Free our minds. Relieve the crushing weight by telling others about your weak moments, your sorrows, and your pain. As hard as that may be, the end result brings such relief!
2. We are designed to be a communal people.
“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
Confessing your sins to others spreads the weight and holds us accountable to each other. What do the twelve disciples, marriage, and the body have in common? They are all examples of God’s desire for us to be in community with others. The disciples had each other, marriage is composed of a man and a woman, and the body is made of many parts all working together, used in the Bible often as an analogy of how we should live. God wants us to live, pray, worship, and do life together. If we all live selflessly for others, then someone is living selflessly for you too! Every story from Jesus’ life is centered on this. Loving God and loving others before self. Find a community to do life with. If you have one, take the next step and share your heart with them. Let those around you share your burdens just as you share theirs.
3. Your vulnerability glorifies God.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” 2 Corinthians 12:9
How will God use your weakness to show His Glory? I have no idea…but God says He will. The testimony of God using your battle with anxiety or depression to help others has a monumental and eternal impact. Focusing on that impact and outcome can help you accept your own weaknesses. Instead of hiding those weaknesses, name them! Share them! Find others with them. Give them to God so He can use them in whatever way he desires.
The path to being emotionally fit and healthy is never-ending. We can always strengthen that muscle. You can practice in your marriage and amongst close friends. This is simply to make you aware, men, that the age of only stoic, strong men needs to end. We need men that sometimes cry uncontrollably, laugh hysterically, dance with joy, angrily defend, prophesy boldly, apologize humbly, and love passionately.
Photo Credit: Unsplash/Jack Sharp
