I opened the news feed on my phone a few weeks ago and came across a story that caught my attention above the rest. It was an article announcing the death of Illia “Golem” Yefimchyk, the world’s “most monstrous bodybuilder.” It was the photo of Illia that pulled me in. His physique looked otherworldly. His bearded face was completely out of proportion with the width of his neck. Things got even more extreme from his traps down, all peppered with ornate tattoo work and bulging veins. According to the article published by People Magazine Illia’s biceps were a mind bending 25” in diameter, his chest measured 61”, and he had a daily caloric intake of 16,500 across seven meals to maintain his bulk. The 6 ft, 340lb Belarusian athlete was globally renowned for his workout routines with an Instagram following of over 300,000 (Longmire). He died at the age of 36. The cause of death…a heart attack.
“Huh,” I thought. “There’s no amount of muscle that can make up for a weak heart.”
There’s a lot of talk about masculinity these days. What it is, what it’s not, how it’s needed, how it’s under attack, what it’s supposed to be, what it looks like when it’s toxic or passive, both imbalanced and unhealthy. All for good reason. Man is one of only two beings known to be created intentionally in the image of God Himself. It’s worth paying attention to. I’d like to invite you, both male and female readers, after reading this paragraph, to close your eyes and ask yourselves some questions. When you think of manhood what comes to mind? Who comes to mind? How does he speak? What does his voice sound like? What sense do you get from being around him? How does being around him impact you one way or the other?
We men are an interesting lot, a bundle of both ego and insecurity at work simultaneously like a foot on the gas and the break at the same time. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, hardwired with a tremendous capacity for industrious ingenuity at our best and outright destruction at our worst. When we’re good we can make things around us good. When we’re not…well, things have a tendency to follow suit. Most of us (I use the word “most” with great care and consideration) are navigating life with some measure of woundedness. Some of the wounds we carry are subliminal and hard to detect. But there are men that have been so hurt by other men that they want to give up being men altogether. It’s a sobering thought. All men (me included) live with the perpetual desire to prove themselves. I might be trying to do it by writing this article. When huddled together you’ll find that our conversations drift mostly toward sharing what we’ve accomplished, experienced, or conquered (“Man, this one time…”). Either that or we’re trying not to cry while talking about our dads. Many of us have no idea why. We tend to operate comfortably in the mind and strength quadrants of our personhood with little to no awareness or regard for our heart and our soul. We often live under the delusion that time spent diving into issues of the heart and soul slow us down, keeping us from real, measurable achievement. This can tend to pull us into living in the shallows where shipwrecks commonly occur.
Amidst all of this, historically speaking, it is impossible to disprove the fact that society as a whole rises and falls with the beliefs, thoughts, and actions of men. Not only men, but in terms of percentage of sheer impact primarily men. Genghis Kahn, Albert Einstien, Muhammad, Abraham Lincoln, Mozart, Napolean Bonaparte, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sigmund Freud, Paul the Apostle…even Jesus of Nazareth. The role and influence of men on the trajectory of humanity is undeniable. Which begs a few questions: What makes a good one? How are we men to know how do it? How does a man know how to be one taking into account all of the complexity of his intricate personhood, not to mention his brokenness. In other words, when we close our eyes to answer the forementioned questions above, how do we know if we’re seeing the right thing?
An observation over the course of my 45 years as a man:
When we men gather to answer these kinds of questions on our own without any kind of outside influence (including the feminine, or the Divine), historically we have had a tendency to create a caricature of what a man should be based on cultural stereotypes. The biggest, the strongest, the most aggressive, the “alpha dog.” We can then prop up that caricature as the ideal and strive toward it out of our insecurities. The word ideal is a dangerous one, it sounds very close to the word idol. Without realizing it we can end up living in a destructive feedback loop worshipping this inauthentic figment of our imagination. We move to quick, equating true masculinity with the nearest Goliath we can find. His larger-than-life presence and louder than life mouth adds to the noise, but it isn’t uncommon to discover it all as a dog-and-pony-show distracting us from the missing intangibles of what makes a man a man. In the end we end up with a masculinity with big muscles and a weak heart. It’s Nebuchadnezzar syndrome. The book of Daniel recounts the story of the giant 90-foot statue that he made of himself out of pure gold and what happened when he forced everybody to bow down to it. As a result, he ended up living like a madman for 7 years, eating grass on all fours like an ox outside the city where he was once king. He came back to his senses only after his acknowledgment of a God more powerful than himself. Perhaps this is why God said, “it is not good for man to be alone.” (Gen. 2:14 NIV). This sort of thing can be observed in environment after environment, from organized athletics to metal bands, to megachurches. The truth is man’s worship was simply not made to terminate on himself, even the most “idealized” version. It will only lead to death. We were made in God’s image. We do well to not try and remake Him into our own.
If we open our bibles, we find throughout its pages a man described as being “after God’s own heart.” Admittedly, David is no magic bullet solution to our quandary. We don’t find him as a lifeless golden statue calling us to bow. Instead, we find an amalgamation of high holy moments and dark depravity, of mountaintop triumph and devastating defeat, and of the sincerest joy and the most personal pain. He is the humble shepherd boy, the indignant giant slayer, Jonathan’s soul companion, and the object of Saul’s jealous rage. We see him seated on thrones and at the forefront of armies. We also see him as a cave dweller and a vagabond. He is both the passive, adulterous murderer and the contrite recipient of Nathan’s rebuke and the grace that followed. He is the father of Absalom the rebel-tyrant who weeps at the news of his death. From his heart pour prayers of highest praise, deepest doubt, and vilest anger. He is the undignified dancer in front of the Ark of the Presence, and he is the one who, when confronted with his own sinful pride, refuses to offer the Lord that which costs him nothing. Though at times it seems paradoxical, through it all he remains a “man after God’s own heart.” Also, we should consider the fact that the biblical narrative affords us a detailed look into both his personal history (where he was and what he did) as well as his life of prayer and contemplation (what he thought and felt) more than any other. Our relationship with David in the Scripture is unique allowing us to look deeper than we can the story of Abraham, Moses, Peter, or Paul. In 1 & 2 Samuel and the Psalms we see him in living color.
Keep in mind, David was not a Bible verse. He was a person, a man. He should be considered and imagined in more than two dimensions, meaning at times he was brave and at others he was weak. David was also not the Living Word of God in flesh, Jesus the Christ, also a man yet fully God. He was prone to wander like the rest of mankind. But his prayers and songs were commonly found on Jesus’ lips while he walked the earth, and David’s prophetic sense of Jesus as the eventual fulfillment of Messiah is unmistakable. Consider David’s Messianic Psalm 2:
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” (Psalm 2: 7-9 ESV)
(Jesus refers to this Psalm himself in the Gospel of Mark 12: 35-37)
Perhaps David can give us some clues on the path to discovering true biblical masculinity. Maybe, in a counterintuitive way, his great victories and flaws and brokenness can show us how a man after God’s own heart is to behave when living in the light and being confronted with his own depravity. Here are a few observations of characteristics that have been helpful to me as I’ve considered the life of David considering what it means to be a man:
1. Divinely Inspired Courage
As a boy David spent time with the Lord on his own. He got to know Him in the secret place of the pasture where the sheep he tended grazed. Here he plumbed the depths of the Father’s shepherd-heart in sincere and prayerful conversation. His awareness of the might of the God of Israel in these times became the rich soil for his confidence in God to grow. When it came time for the giant to be challenged his world view had been so shaped by God’s reality that it was only natural for him to step forward with boldness. We see evidence of this later in his dealings with Saul and his conquest of the Philistines.
2. A Fully Integrated Life
When we consider the David we find in 1 & 2 Samuel alongside the David we discover in the Psalms we see a man who, though flawed, shows a desire to live in light of the greatest commandment:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut. 6: 4 ESV)
He is as prone to dive to the depths of his own spiritual and emotional being as he is to wield a sword. He is the warrior poet. He sees heart, soul, mind, and strength on the same plane and values each as essential to his life of communion with God. He rarely hides behind one to value another. His life is characterized by singing for joy, weeping for lament, arming for warfare, and shouting at the sky in doubt and anger. All of it is sacramental in nature.
3. A Humble Contrition
When God’s absolute purity and holiness meets David’s dark depravity, David admits his failure, mourns his brokenness, and moves in repentance toward God. Perhaps this is the greatest lesson a man can learn from David. When confronted with conviction he rejects the internal tendency to self-justify and falls on his face to receive God’s grace. He doesn’t worship his ego; he kills it to discover a divine strength to navigate the challenging path on the other side of repentance.
4. Undignified Worship
When it comes time to acknowledge God, David puts his fist through the paper man. He undresses himself, dropping the façade and dances before the Lord. He cares not for the opinion of the spectator, nor does he want to be one. He is laser focused on the opinion of God and God alone and orders his behavior accordingly without regard to who happens to be watching.
Men, this list is by no means comprehensive. If anything, consider it an invitation to dive into what we are given in the scriptures in the life of David on your own. Maybe you’ll find yourself in your own secret-place pasture listening to the voice of the Father whispering to you. You might even start singing back to him. If you want, you can open your bible to the middle and pray some of David’s own words back to Him. But word to the wise, should you start you’ll find yourself being pulled into a reality where God’s convicting and comforting Presence is inescapable.
Psalm 139
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
Longmire, Becca. "Illia ‘Golem’ Yefimchyk, World's 'Most Monstrous Bodybuilder,' Dies at 36 After Heart Attack." People, 13 September 2024, https://people.com/bodybuilder-illia-golem-yefimchyk-dies-at-36-8711976. Accessed 7 October 2024.
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