Wild At Heart (PART 5: The Battle)

*WARNING: This blog entry contains adult themes, messy spirituality, and psychological nudity! Reader discretion is advised - please enter with discernment!!*

Do you remember The Question?

Do I have what it takes? Am I powerful?

As a man, you may not like what I'm about to say:

--"You cannot turn a cheek you do not have..."

--Many of your "best choices" to let someone else decide how you should live have slowly removed "one vertebra at a time, until in the end you have no spine at all..."

--"...our culture" is determined "that the aggressive nature of boys is inherently bad, and we have to make them into something more like girls."

--The answer to The Question isn't in the size of your wallet...or your penis.

--"...the church may have a masculine exterior, but its soul has turned feminine."

--All the pornography, addiction, greed, or ignorance in the world isn't going to let you off the hook in answering The Question or help you in healing The Wound.

This isn't supposed to be nice, or make you -- as a man -- feel good. Let me ask you to consider the wound...your wound. Is it nice? Does it feel good?

In Chapter Five of Wild At Heart (2001: Thomas Nelson, Inc.), author John Eldredge (http://www.ransomedheart.com/) tells us a very evident, but often denied, truth: "But for many, many men their souls still hang in the balance because no one, no one has ever invited them to be dangerous, to know their own strength, to discover that they have what it takes." (p. 79)

Don't want the wound? Too bad -- and get used to it. According to Eldredge, "...a man is not wounded once, but many, many times in the course of his life." (p. 79) As a man, each time I'm wounded I choose to take a hit -- an arrow -- directly in the place of my strength, my heart.

And, to be honest, as a man -- and as a Christian -- I'm tired of taking arrows, I'm tired of the Enemy's attempts to take me out each day...and I'm tired of being a man who fails, at times, to claim the power and the image of the One who created me to be a much stronger man.

Who's firing the arrows? Who's got me in the cross hairs? I'd like to change the story...

Finishing Him Off

As a man, I have a wild side -- dangerous, sharp, adventurous, and masculine. Society wants me to either emasculate myself and play nice or else allow the endless parade of people, places, or things associated with the world, the flesh, or Satan force me into a kaleidoscope of poor imitations of what a man can -- or should -- be.

"Our culture," Eldredge asserts, "has turned against the masculine essence, aiming to cut it off early." (Wild At Heart, p. 80)

Would I be any less of a man if my genitals were cut off? Of course, a large measure of society would say, "Yes -- you are now less of a man."

Has the church lost its manhood? Have men, in general, lost it to the ravages of emasculation? Single or married -- it doesn't matter.

"Women are often attracted to the wilder side of a man," Eldredge notes, "but once having caught him they settle down to the task of domesticating him. Ironically, if he gives in he'll resent her for it, and she in turn will wonder where the passion has gone." (Wild At Heart, p. 82)

Where has my passion gone? Where -- as a man -- has yours gone? Who put me in a cage? Why is a lion -- or God -- put in one?

Danger...

No, no, no -- don't' be dangerous. That's the message -- that's the bottom line. The church, perhaps, would be pleased to have all men be Sunday School Jesus, the Lamb instead of the Lion.

And, in turn, what has happened to that dirty word...initiation?

Robert Bly (Iron John) says, "We know that our society produces a plentiful supply of boys, but seems to produce fewer and fewer men."

Have a clue?

"There are two simple reasons: We don't know how to initiate boys into men, and second, we're not sure we really want to. We want to socialize them, to be sure, but away from all that is fierce, and wild, and passionate. In other words, away from masculinity and toward something more feminine." (Wild At Heart, p. 83)

As a man, my heart is crying out for heroes of masculinity. Women can be heroic -- but we've forgotten along the way that "it was a Man who let Himself be nailed to Calvary's cross...It's simply to remind us that God made men the way they are because we desperately need them to be the way they are. Yes, a man is a dangerous things. So is a scalpel. It can wound or it can save your life. You don't make it safe by making it dull; you put it in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing." (Wild At Heart, p. 83)

Here's a question: Are you a stallion or a gelding?

What's Really Going On Here, Anyway?

My father was in one of the waves that landed on the shores of Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. As a boy, I once asked him what it was like. He became very quiet and would not talk about it. It wasn't until I was a man, and saw the first thirty minutes of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan that I understood why.

My father had been to war -- but he never prepared, or initiated, me for the battles that lay ahead.

There is still a war going on -- and the hearts of men are being taken out, left and right. Have a look around you -- what do you observe?" Eldredge asks. "What do you see in the lives of the men that you work with, live by, go to church alongside? Are they full of passionate freedom? Do they fight well?" (Wild At Heart, pp. 84-85)

Men at war take wounds. Sometimes I think the wounds from my father or those delivered by life are nothing compared to those I've inflicted on myself. For years I've been bleeding -- the abuse of drugs, pornography, and the minefields of pride have left me alive but badly wounded.

They are trying," Eldredge says of such wounded men, "to crawl forward, but are having an awful time getting their lives together; they seem to keep taking hits. You know others who are already captives, languishing in prisons of despair, addiction, idleness, or boredom. The place looks like a battlefield," he says of our lives, "the Omaha Beach of the soul." (Wild At Heart, p. 85)

This is war. And there is insanity that will keep me -- or us -- as a man from being honest.

Sometimes I get tired of it all -- the waste of time, the softness of men, the battlefronts and casualties. Sometimes I don't care about anyone or anything but myself, the narcotics of arrogance and pride running slowly through my veins. And there are times when I forget about Adam standing by and not fighting for Eve against the Serpent of Old.

And I tell you this: just because you want to deny that there is a ware, that there is an Enemy, doesn't make the realities of both disappear.

"We were born into a world at war," Eldredge declares. "This scene we're living in is no sitcom; it's bloody battle. Haven't you noticed with what deadly accuracy the wound was given? Those blows you've taken -- they were not random accidents at all. They hit dead center." (Wild At Heart, p. 86)

We were born into...war.

"And there was war in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in Heaven. The great dragon was hurled down -- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him." (Revelation 12:7-9 NIV)

The Enemy is here, assaulting our hearts as men. Why?

"Do you know why there's been such an assault?" Eldredge asks us. "The Enemy fears you. You are dangerous big-time. If you ever really got your heart back, lived from it with courage, you would be a huge problem to him. You would do a lot of damage...on the side of good. Remember how valiant and effective God has been in the history of the world? You are a stem of that victorious stalk." (Wild At Heart, p. 87)

But as men at war -- against the Enemy and in the battle for our hearts -- we must be initiated into our authentic and powerful masculinity...and be trained and armored for the onslaught ahead.

And we -- as men -- must choose to go to war and be willing to engage the Enemy with all the weapons of manhood.

"Most men," Eldredge concludes, "have never been initiated into manhood. They have never had anyone show them how to do it, and especially, how to fight for their heart." (Wild At Heart, p. 87)

Your heart, men, may be in captivity behind Enemy lines. To get it back, you will have to heal the wound, and in doing so, ask yourself this question:

"What's at risk?"

Our Search For An Answer

What's at risk for me to be initiated into manhood?

What's at risk for me to hear the words my father never told me?

What's at risk for me to know who I am and that I have what it takes?

Eldredge isn't shy in answering these kind of questions for me -- or for us, as men.

"In order to help you find the answer to The Question, let me ask you another: What have you done with your question? Where have you taken it? You see, a man's core question does not go away. He may try for years to shove it out of his awareness, and just 'get on with life.' But it does not go away. It is a hunger so essential to our souls that it will compel us to find a resolution. In truth, it drives everything we do." (Wild At Heart, p. 88)

On the journey to recapture my heart, I will have to understand the concept of validation -- and how it can skew the compass so vital to my search to mislead me in any number of directions. And, for me as a man (and as a Christian), the more I refuse to listen to God's voice, the further I end up off course.

"Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention and gain understanding...I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble...My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." (Proverbs 4:1, 11-12, 20-23 NIV)

With initiation, a young man listens to the voice of his father and other mature men. And in our society and culture, so many young boys have become men without initiation, without validation, and listening to the cacophony of voices that make no sense...or give a man any significance of sense of belonging.

"Where does a man go for a sense of validation?" Eldredge asks us. "To what he owns? To who pays attention to him? How attractive his wife is? Where he gets to eat out? How well he plays sports?" (Wild At Heart, p. 90)

To that list I could add: "To how much is in his wallet? By the quality of his toys? How big is his house? The number of cars he owns? Where he vacations? To the size of his manhood? To the amount of his tithe?"

The snipers keep shooting, and men are taken out. Some, most -- if not all of us, as men -- crawl, with our wounds, to one universal place.

"But the deadliest place a man ever takes his search, the place every man seems to wind up no matter what trail he's followed, is the woman." (Wild At Heart, p. 90)

Taking It To Eve

When a man takes his question to the woman," Eldredge suggests, "what happens is either addiction or emasculation. Usually both." (Wild At Heart, p. 93)

Here, once again, I testify from truth and experience...Eldredge is dead-on accurate.

With an absent father in my early teens, I was wounded next by my mother -- caught with pornography, shamed into a corner of my soul for the sins of my father, and left for impending disaster in seeking an answer to The Question from a source who couldn't (or wouldn't) --or shouldn't -- provide it.

The truth is, whether in porn or in trying to find the answer from Mom or thinking that sex equals love, I longed to "be the hero to the beauty -- that has been my longing, my image of what it means to really, finally be a man. Bly calls it the search for the Golden-haired Woman." (Wild At Heart, pp. 90-91)

I became addicted to pornography at a young age -- long before I was seeking the answer in drugs. According to Eldredge, it's no wonder.

"But the deeper reason is because that seductive beauty reaches down inside and touches your desperate hunger for validation as a man you didn't even know you had, touches it like nothing else most men have ever experienced." (Wild At Heart, p. 91)

Men know this: sex sells, sex is seductive, and sex is not the answer. I have never found the Golden-haired Woman (or a beauty worthy of my hero) in the abysmal black hole of pornography. And, no matter how loving she was, as a man I could never be initiated by my mother. "Femininity," Eldredge reminds us, "can never bestow masculinity." (p. 93)

So for years I sought my power -- and the answer -- through my erection. Eldredge agrees. "If a man can feel an erection, well then, he feels powerful. He feels strong. I'm telling you, for many men, The Question feels hardwired to his penis. If he can feel like the hero sexually, well, then mister, he's the hero. Pornography is so seductive because what is a wounded, famished man to think when there are literally hundreds of beauties willing to give themselves to him?" (Wild At Heart, pp. 91-92)

But, as I said, the answer isn't there. It's not there. As the poet William Blake said, "The naked woman's body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man." But, as captivating, mysterious, powerful, and deeply emotional as the creation of woman by God is, asking one the answer to The Question -- or expecting authentic masculine initiation from oen -- is simply an illusion.

And Eldredge sums it up perfectly:

"Because we cannot hear the real answer until we see we've got a false one. So long as we chase the illusion, how can we face reality? The hunger is there; it lives in our souls like a famished craving, no matter what we've tried to fill it with. If you take your question to Eve, it will break your heart." (Wild At Heart, p. 95)

There is only one source. And, men, I encourage you to take your question back -- and let our journey continue.

Walk away from all the places you've been seeking it in where it can't be found. Stop chasing after it in an empty sense of self.

As George MacDonald says, "Who can give a man this, his own name?"

Next Week: Wild At Heart (PART 6: The Father's Voice)

Wild At Heart (PART 4: The Wound)

Even decades after it occurred, I can recall with vivid clarity the day my father inflicted the wound upon me.

As a little boy, I was playing soldiers in the apartment we were living in, setting up the green plastic warriors across the floor and furniture of the fifth floor walk-up in the Bronx. I was no more than 6 or 7 years old, my father fast asleep in an easy chair.

At one point in the pretend battle, I launched a "wounded" soldier into the air -- but it flew erratically and hit my father in the face, startling him awake. A look of anger filled his eyes and spread across his face. He called me over to him, but I was afraid -- of him. He said he wasn't going to hit me, and called me over again.

When I trusted him at his word and went over, the hard slap across my face was something I didn't see coming -- I was looking at him with trust in my eyes. As the pain and fear mixed together with the shock of his anger, I took the wound. The hand print on my cheek eventually faded -- the arrow he put into my heart (the heart of a little boy who loved his father enough to trust him at his word) took longer, much longer, to dislodge.

What's your story? What's your wound?

In Chapter Four of Wild at Heart (2001: Thomas Nelson, Inc.), author John Eldredge (http://www.ransomedheart.com/) makes it clear: "Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father." (p. 60)

So, let us continue -- as men -- and have the courage, perhaps, to see the wound, name it, or even go so far as to begin the healing by finally pulling the arrow out.

A Man's Deepest Question

Remember the question?

"Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes...when it counts?"

According to Eldredge, as a boy looks for a man (most likely his father) to bestow masculinity upon him, he will ask -- as children do -- a very important question:

"Do I have what it takes? Am I powerful?"

"Miss that moment," Eldredge says, "and you'll miss a boy's heart forever. It's not a question -- it's the question, the one every boy and man is longing to ask. Until a man knows he's a man he will forever be trying to prove he is one, while at the same time shrink from anything that might reveal he is not. Most men live their lives haunted by the question, or crippled by the answer they've been given." (Wild at Heart, p. 62)

Every son wants to hear the answer from their father...every son. Even Jesus.

"As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17 NIV)

Is that the answer you received?

Where Does Masculinity Come From?

As stated before, masculinity is bestowed.

"A boy learns who he is and what he's got from a man," Eldredge notes, "or the company of men. He cannot learn it any other place. He cannot learn it from other boys, and he cannot learn it from the world of women." (Wild at Heart, p. 62)

From experience, I can attest to this truth on several fronts.

As a Christian man, I see clearly in the Word of God how Jesus looked to His Father for guidance and direction -- biblical masculinity I would call this.

The Gospel of John bears the evidence. "Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does." (John 5:19-20 NIV)

John goes on to chronicle other declarations of bestowed bonds of Father and Son biblical masculinity:

*"I and the Father are One." (John 10:30)

*"If you really knew Me, you would know My Father as well." (John 14:7)

*"Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me..." (John 14:11)

*"...but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what My Father has commanded Me." (John 14:31)

*"If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father's commands and remain in His love." (John 15:10)

*"I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father." (John 16:28)

*"Yet I am not alone, for My Father is with Me." (John 16:32)

From the beginning, it has been the plan that a father would build the foundations in a boy's heart. As men -- with the wound -- we know that the foundation, if not damaged, has been severely compromised.

From Strength To Strength

"Femininity," Eldredge reminds us," can never bestow masculinity." (Wild at Heart, p. 64)

He is right, and men know this. True, all boys are birthed into this world and nurtured by their mothers. But, Eldredge says, "there comes a time for a shift when he begins to seek out his father's affection and attention." (pp. 63-64)

At this point, the mother becomes the moon and the father becomes the sun in a boy's universe. Many women possibly seek a boy's attention or devotion to fill a gap in their world left by their inattentive husbands (this also was the case for me). But, Eldredge notes, "Masculinity is an essence that is hard to articulate but that a boy naturally craves as he craves food and water. It is something passed between men." (p. 66)

And what is passed is blessing.

Robery Bly, the renowned mythopoetic author of Iron John, notes, "The ancient societies believed that a boy becomes a man only through ritual effort -- only through the 'active intervention of the older men.'" From my own experience in my life -- and the missing pieces of blessing from my childhood -- I know that a father or other man or men must intervene...and the mother must let go -- or be let go of.

At the age of 34, I was finally blessed with initiation into masculinity. The ManKind Project™ (http://www.mkp.org/), through the New Warrior Training Adventure™, took the place of what masculine blessing my father failed to bestow on me -- and powerfully intervened in my life to test me and initiate me into authentic and archetypal masculinity.

What I've found in men's work -- with active involvement from 1996 through 2002 in MKP, and a return to men's work this year -- is a community of men who are actively healing the wounds of boyhood...and becoming safer men in the world. And in the work, men -- either father's themselves or single -- take on and develop healthier and stronger attributes of fathering that may have been missing in their own past.

"A boy's passage," Eldredge explains, "into manhood involves many of those moments. The father's role is to arrange for them, invite his boy into them, keep his eye out for the moment the question arises and then speak into his son's heart yes, you are. You have what it takes. And that is why the deepest wound is always given by the father." (Wild at Heart, p. 68-69)

The Father-Wound

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24 NIV)

The wound is inevitable -- and the wound hurts.

"Some fathers give a wound," Eldredge states, "merely by their silence; they are present, yet absent to their sons. The silence is deafening." (Wild at Heart, p. 71)

I can only imagine how Jesus, the Son, felt at that moment on the Cross when God, the Father, was silent.

"From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice 'Eloi, Eloi, lamasabachthani?' -- which means, 'My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?'" (Matthew 27:45-46 NIV)

Even Christ, the LORD, received a wound from His Father -- and felt the pain of what it was like to be without the Father at a critical moment. But even with what Jesus felt and experienced, Scripture reminds me of what was done for me -- a man, a sinner -- by the sacrifice of a man taking on the wounds.

"Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV)

As human men -- though created in the image of God -- we are subject to the wounds which we receive and, paradoxically, can only be healed by the sacrifice of what Jesus did in taking the wounds -- our wounds, my wounds, all the wounds -- which God the Father, due His position and authority, rightfully could have placed upon us as consequences of sinful hearts.

"The assault wounds are like a shotgun blast to the chest," Eldredge says. "This can get unspeakably evil when it involves physical, sexual, or verbal abuse carried on for years. Without some kind of help, many men never recover. One thing about assault wounds -- they are obvious. The passive wounds are not; they are pernicious, like a cancer. Because they are subtle, they often go unrecognized as wounds and therefore are actually more difficult to heal." (Wild at Heart, p. 70)

And so it has gone, men to men, fathers to sons -- the wounds are given, and the wounds are received.

The Wound's Effect

So, as a man, what can I do with the wound?

I'm not alone -- all men carry a wound. Most know it's there but don't know what to do about it. Some ignore it, acting out of its pain across their entire lives. Others discover the wound, name it, and go forth towards a path of healing.

"So there is no crossing through this country," Eldredge observes of the landscape between being a boy and becoming a man, "without taking a wound. And every wound, whether it's assaultive or passive, delivers a message. The messages feels final and true, absolutely true, because it is delivered with such force. Our reaction to it shapes our personality in very significant ways. From that flows the false self. Most of the men you meet are living out a false self, a pose, which is directly related to his wound." (Wild at Heart, p. 72)

We have a choice as men -- either overcompensate and become driven or violent, or shrink and become passive or retreating in our masculinity. It's because of the wound -- not because of being a man. But Eldredge warns us, "The wound comes, and with it a message. From that place a boy makes a vow, chooses a way of life that gives rise to the false self. At the core of it all is a deep uncertainty. The man doesn't live from a center. So many men feel stuck -- either paralyzed and unable to move, or unable to stop moving." (Wild at Heart, pp. 74-75)

Take a moment as a man and ask yourself: "Do I have what it takes? Am I powerful?"

If you can't -- or won't -- answer these questions, it is time to ask yourself this one:

"Am I ready to go into battle to win the war for my heart?"

The wound will be in your way. But there is a way through...

Next Week: Wild At Heart (PART 5: The Battle)

Wild At Heart (PART 3: The Question)

"Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes...when it counts?" (Eldredge, John. Wild at Heart. 2001: Thomas Nelson, Inc., p. 57)

I'm not ashamed to admit it: this question -- THE question -- haunts me in the corridors of power in the castle of my masculinity.

After the fall of man (Genesis 3:1-24), God said to Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. (Genesis 3:17-19 NIV, italics added)

Obviously, this was the curse put upon man in relation to the damage done by sin -- but it also tells us of the power behind the Creator, the awesome force that could -- and would -- breathe life into dust and emblazon upon it the image of God. Such is the real DNA, the historical resume, of man.

In Chapter Three of Wild at Heart, author John Eldredge (http://www.ransomedheart.com/) challenges us, as men, to confront the caricatures our lives have become. Like a lion in a zoo cage, Eldredge ponders what living in a cage, over time, does to the heart of a man. At times, so do I...

"I've been unemployed for six months, and have been living in a homeless shelter for over one month; I haven't a penny to my name." Am I really a man?

"I'm clean and free from the addictive chains of drugs and pornography, but just like in the Garden, the deceitful lure of temptation will someday be placed in my path." Have I got what it takes?

"There will be moments in life when I will have to step up into the genuine power of my masculinity and speak my truth -- as a man and as a Christian. Will I do it?" ...when it counts?

Eldredge looks squarely into the mirror, and asks us to do the same. Am I -- are you -- really a man, a man who is fierce, passionate, and wild at heart? Let us continue our journey, and examine how easily a man created in the image of God, the Lion of Judah, can, as Dorothy Sayers wrote, become a victim to the world who "very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah," creating "a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies." Or, as Eldredge says, "How come when men look in their hearts they don't discover something valiant and dangerous, but instead find anger, lust, and fear?" (Wild at Heart, p. 41)

The Lion of Judah??

Perhaps the place a man's heart misses the mark the most is how and where he engages it. What is the battle between a man's fierceness and his fears?

"Without a great battle," Eldredge notes, "in which a man can live and die, the fierce part of his nature goes underground and sort of simmers there in a sullen anger that seems to have no reason." (p. 42)

Created in the image of God, we forget the power of our Creator -- and His purpose for giving us hearts that were made to engage great battles and epic adventures.

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." (Isaiah 43:1-2 NIV)

What has happened to men -- is it more desirable to seek adventures or the thrill of the cubicle? Is it more exhilarating to "pass through the waters...the rivers...walk through the fire..." or lose perspective to fantasy football?

Make no mistake: the messages are clear. "So many guys have been told to put that adventurous spirit behind them and 'be responsible,' meaning live only for duty." (Wild at Heart, p. 43)

And, in the end, a man with only a sense of duty in his heart -- with no adventure -- will more than likely go in search of darker paths to follow. For years I struggled against the forces of drugs and pornography -- due, in part, to the fear of following the path of my deepest desires to create, initiate community, and actively seek a relationship with God.

"If a man does not find those things for which his heart is made, if he is never even invited to live for them from his deep heart, he will look for them in some other ways." (Eldredge, p. 44)

And God knows this: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV)

If we are not careful, if we become men who deny and kill God-created desires of our hearts, we may end up in dark places where all we'll know is that something has gone wrong.

Our Fear

"This is every man's deepest fear: to be exposed, to be found out, to be discovered as an impostor, and not really a man." (Wild at Heart, p. 45)

We, as men, are made by God, in His image, to come through. All throughout Scripture, God -- in all His incarnations -- comes through powerfully AND faithfully. Do I? Do you? Can I? Can you?

Take another step in front of the mirror -- go on, do it. Ask yourself: "How do I see myself as a man?" Choose a word to honestly describe yourself. Was it strong, passionate, or dangerous? If not, what was it? Would you have the courage to ask other men in your life what they think of you as a man? What would you fear they would say?

The point is, Eldredge reveals, "even though the desires are there for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue, even though our boyhood dreams once were filled with those things, we don't think we're up to it. Why don't men play the man? Why don't they offer their strength to a world desperately in need of it? For two simple reasons: We doubt very much that we have any real strength to offer, and we're pretty certain that if we did offer what we have it wouldn't be enough. Something has gone wrong and we know it." (Eldredge, p. 48)

What Is A Man For?

There have been many times lately when I've asked myself (and God), "What am I doing? What is my purpose?"

The desires of the heart are insightful to how we, as men, are designed -- and from that creative source, as men made in the image of God, the design (or archetypes) of how we are put together as men reveal the paths of destiny we choose to follow...or spend our lives running from.

There is great risk -- as a man -- for me to be all in to the adventure a relationship with God brings to me. As a man, I step into a world at war every day, opposing forces wanting to kill my heart's desire. And in the battle to rescue Eve, the first man -- Adam -- fell to the paralysis of fear and did nothing. He was right there as she was tempted, took the fruit she offered and ate -- yet did nothing to risk, fight, or rescue.

"He denied his very nature," Eldredge tells us, "and went passive. And every man after him, every son of Adam, carries in his heart now the same failure. Every man repeats the sin of Adam, every day. We won't risk, we won't fight, and we won't rescue Eve." (p. 51)

What is a man for? I believe that if I can't be authentic, then I'll only end up hiding...from myself, others, and from God.

Posers

In the Garden, after he failed himself (as a man), his wife (as husband and protector), and God (as servant), Adam hid.

"We are hiding, every last one of us. Well aware that we, too, are not what we were meant to be, desperately afraid of exposure, terrified of being seen for what we are and are not, we have run off into the bushes." (Wild at Heart, p. 52)

What, as a man, is your facade? How, as a man, are you faking your way through life? I have many masks, and I can pose my way in -- and out -- of life on a day-to-day mission of sabotaging my authenticity. I can choose to fight only the battles I know I can win, only such adventures my skills are matched to, or only those beauties I can easily rescue.

So, as a man, how do I answer THE question? Am I really a man? As a man, where do I look to find out the reasons why parts of my life don't work? Have I got what it takes...when it counts?

As our journey continues, we shall look at the place we all -- as men -- share in the individual and corporate story of what hurt us. But, in leaving you for now, I bless you with the words of Robertson McQuilkin (President Emeritus of Columbia International University) in a poem entitled, "Let Me Get Home Before Dark."

It’s sundown, Lord.
The shadows of my life stretch back
into the dimness of the years long spent.
I fear not death, for that grim foe betrays himself at last,
thrusting me forever into life:
Life with you, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear.
I fear the Dark Specter may come too soon—
or do I mean, too late?
That I should end before I finish or
finish, but not well.
That I should stain your honor; shame your name,
grieve your loving heart.
Few, they tell me, finish well…
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of a spirit
grown mean and small, fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few who love me still.
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet,
a joy to all who taste;
Spirit—sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of tattered gifts,
rust-locked, half-spent or ill-spent,
A life that once was used of God
now set aside.
Grief for glories gone or
Fretting for a task God never gave.
Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory,
Gazing on the faded banners of victories long gone.
Cannot I run well unto the end?
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The outer me decays—
I do not fret or ask reprieve.
The ebbing strength but weans me from mother earth
and grows me up for heaven.
I do not cling to shadows cast by immortality.
I do not patch the scaffold lent to build the real, eternal me.
I do not clutch about me my cocoon,
vainly struggling to hold hostage
a free spirit pressing to be born.
But will I reach the gate
in lingering pain, body distorted, grotesque?
Or will it be a mind
wandering un-tethered among light
fantasies or grim terrors?
Of your grace, Father, I humbly ask…
Let me get home before dark.

Next Week: Wild At Heart (PART 4: The Wound)