Wild at Heart; John Eldridge

Wild at Heart; John Eldridge

Well I finally finished my 2^nd book. My men’s group were / are using this book for our current study. The book is extremely powerful, it is one that I need to return to at least 1 more time. If you receive it correctly it will get in your junk, but in a good way. A lot of things that had been buried, most of which already healed, were brought back to the fore to be inspected. The cool thing, other than the poetry it inspired, was looking at these things from a full circle perspective. I can now tell the stories of my hurts with a happy ending, there were times in my life that I didn’t think that would be possible.

The book while excellent, at times it’s sweeping generalizations & assumptions that its theories apply to everyone can be overbearing. I understand why it was phrased that way, but I know guys that some of the theories don’t apply to, they are very blessed men.

The mission of the book is to help men recover their masculine hearts & live in accordance in the way that (Eldridge says) we were designed to. Eldridge says (and I certainly agree) that men are designed to have a battle to fight, and adventure to live & a beauty to rescue. He goes on to outline these sharing a lot of his life & struggles, giving some very particle advice on how to deal with our wounds. I won’t recount the book but I really can recommend it.

One thing that was pointed out in the book that really got my attention was how he took a closer look at Adam & Eve & the fall in the Garden of Eden. If you don’t subscribe to the Garden theory (personally I am not sure how it translates into history, but the description reads as poetry to me, not a literal account), the look at the human condition on display is relevant no matter what you believe.  We all know the story, the snake gets Eve to eat the apple & humanity is screwed from then on. What I’ve never looked at before the book is Adam in the situation. Adam, the first man, connected with God, froze in fear. He didn’t do a thing to stop Eve, he didn’t yell at her, he didn’t grab a shovel & cut the snake’s head off, he just froze. Even then, after Eve had eaten the fruit, still having the chance not to make that decision, he just followed her in her mistake. The illustrations that can be drawn from that of our own failings & shortcomings really blows my mind.

My favourite part from the book is actually a quote from another book, but it read; “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I love that like, I love that thinking. Unfortunately that thinking does not help with my current career funk in the slightest. I can’t help but wonder what that means for me. Stupid book got me all thinking & stuff, once I get through my pile of books I’ve committed to reading I will read this again & see what happens then.