Book 5: Wild at Heart

Responding to a book about restoring godly masculinity.

“Deep in his heart, every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”

Men are wired for action, purpose, and connection.

That’s the message from John Eldredge’s best-selling book, Wild at Heart.

In order to face the battles worth fighting, a boy must be initiated into manhood by another man. He must be told he has what it takes to be a man. He must be tested and he must endure.

Trouble is, we’re short on men willing or aware of the need to mentor these boys into manhood.

When my fourteen year old son Micah grabbed me and squeezed to test his strength, he caught me by surprise and I almost knocked him down with my reflex response.

As I listened to this book on my morning walks, I realize that I’ve been too controlling at times when my boys want to express their energy and boyhood.

They’re very well behaved and respectful in public, but I think they’ve been deprived of a few wild adventures. And now that it’s on my radar, I take it very seriously.

I don’t want to raise “nice” boys. I don’t want to shame my sons into behaving. They deserve to know that their manhood is a blessing, and not a toxic trait to be tamed.

Self-control is definitely still a fruit of the Spirit. I haven’t forgotten. But boys who are repressed express their feelings in other, more destructive ways.

John Eldredge writes that boys need a physical exchange and the passing on of a masculine substance from father to son. They crave it and they desire it. and they’re shamed they will be confused and uncertain about what to do with these primal but instinctual desires and urges.

It sounds like they need to wrestle with me far more than they have and use their strength against me. And I need to be man enough to be OK with it and not feel threatened.

It’s not that I feel threatened, it’s that when they use their strength against me, I feel an obligation to address it so that they don’t use that same strength towards women or weaker men. I’ve needed more of a rudder guiding me so I can guide them.

This book is easy to underestimate.

My wife expressed concern when I mentioned that I was reading this book, because I think the general consensus has been that books on healing masculinity tend to ignore the actual feelings and needs of a woman. Or maybe they promote a hyper-testosterone fueled hunting/guns/gym misogynist.

I don’t know why this book stood out as a must-include in my list, but it did. During a time of prayer, I came up with a list of books on masculinity and being a man and peppered them into the 50 Book Challenge.

You don’t have to be a man to read it or get some valuable insights from it. And there are certainly some moments where the author displays his view of masculinity as a very external, expressive and muscular expression… and that’s not necessarily wrong.

But most of us have certainly been domesticated by college, jobs, PTA meetings, HOAs, church conferences, etc. So it’s easy to overreact to the masculine in this book as excessive when, perhaps, we just haven’t stepped up our game and we’re offended that his descriptions sound so different than us.

Just a thought.

I have a few other takeaways from the book this Friday. If you haven’t started reading yet, pick up your copy and listen while you walk like I do or grab a Kindle copy.