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

This is my wound:

"I am not worth the time. Not worth your time.

I am forgotten.

I am not loved - or lovable.

What I do matters to no one.

I am a failure. I will always be a failure.

Don't rock the boat!

Shut up and sit down. My opinion isn't wanted.

Run away and hide.

I don't fit in anywhere I go.

'Daddy doesn't love you.'

No one listens to what I say. What I say isn't important.

What makes me happy doesn't matter.

Following my heart is foolish. DON'T DO IT!!

I am not a man.

Bad Johnny!! Don't be angry!!

People-please those who disgrace with me - NOW!!

Everything is going good. TIME TO SELF-DESTRUCT!

I am not doing IT right.

No sense in having dreams - they won't come true.

I will NEVER succeed - EVER!!"

September 1996. I was initiated into manhood at the age of 34 - and introduced to my Wound. Each of those descriptions you've just read are layers of scar tissue on my Wound. And because of such doubt, discouragement, pain, and suffering it's no wonder I tried to find my name in pot, porn, and pride for so long.

Desperate For Initiation

In Chapter Six of Wild At Heart (2001: Thomas Nelson, Inc.), author John Eldredge (http://www.ransomedheart.com/) makes the case for initiation.

"Where does a man go to learn an answer like that -- to learn his true name, a name that can never be taken from him? That deep heart knowledge comes only through a process of initiation. You have to know where you've come from; you have to have faced a series of trials that test you; you have to have taken a journey, and you have to have faced your enemy." (Wild at Heart, p. 101)

I found my path to masculine initiation through The ManKind Project™ (http://www.mkp.org/) and their New Warrior Training Adventure™, a 3-day experiential process that took me on a guided, adventurous, and dangerous journey of masculine initiation. That process of initiation - and years of subsequent involvement with a community of men willing to claim their names, identify their missions and live them, and - most importantly - be open to the challenges of healing their wounds has had, outside of my turning my life over to, and being born again in, Christ, the most significant impact on my life above anything else.

If your father failed to initiate you, you are an uninitiated man. Society cannot initiate you. You can't initiate yourself, and a man cannot be initiated by a woman. Even as a Christian, I can say the church cannot initiate you into healthy masculinity.

"The church would like to think it's initiating men," Eldredge asserts, "but it's not. What does the church bring a man into? What does it call him out to be? Moral. That is pitifully insufficient. Morality is a good thing, but morality is never the point." (Wild at Heart, p. 101)

And even with initiation at the direction of a father or a community of mature men, there is still a depth a man can be taken to in order to become a man made in the image of God. What does God have to say about initiation?

How God Initiates A Man

God has a plan to initiate us as men, for we are men made in the image of God.

"'Who can give a man this, his own name?' George MacDonald asks. 'God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is.' He reflects upon the white stone that Revelation includes among the rewards God will give to those who 'overcome.'" (Wild at Heart, p. 103)

What do we, as men, have to overcome? The Wound - and in Scripture, our wound comes to us historically, first, from the sin of Adam, the first man - in Eden and by choice, secondly, from the motives we hold deep inside our hearts.

"To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God...(Revelation 2:7 NASB)He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death...(Revelation 2:11)To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it...(Revelation 2:17)He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star...(Revelation 2:26-28)He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels...(Revelation 3:5)He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name...(Revelation 3:12)He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne." (Revelation 3:21)

What father, in a perfect world, wouldn't want the best for his son? But, as men, we don't live in a perfect world or have perfect fathers. God, our Creator, knows us, loves us, and - as men - has a plan for us. Read Psalm 139 if you doubt you are known that intimately by God.

"The history of a man's relationship with God," Eldredge tells us, "is the story of how God calls him out, takes him on a journey and gives him a true name." (Wild at Heart, p. 103)

Adam was created for adventure, battle, and a beauty - so was I, as a man...and so were you. Look back over the words of Jesus in His Revelation. He wants to restore us - through initiation, through the process of overcoming - to His original design: restoration to Paradise, freedom and healing from all wounds, our true name, authority and power, the blessings of community and forgiveness, and a Father who is perfect, powerful, and eternally present.

But Eldredge, once again, guides us to the mirror and invites us, as men, to look at the questions we've been asking of God. They're the wrong ones!

"But to enter into a journey of initiation with God requires a new set of questions: What are you trying to teach me here? What issues in my heart are you trying to raise through this? What is it you want me to see? What are you asking me to let go of? In truth, God has been trying to initiate you for a long time. What is in the way is how you've mishandled your wound and the life you're constructed as a result." (Wild at Heart, p. 105)

The Wound & The False Self

Like most men, I've spent the majority of my life as a man minimizing my wound. In doing so, I've had to pretend it doesn't hurt - allowing the false self to show up.

"Men are taught over and over when they are boys that a wound that hurts is shameful," notes Iron John author Robert Bly. "A wound that stops you from continuing to play is a girlish wound. He who is truly a man keeps walking, dragging his guts behind."

What does that tell me as a man? Tough it up, don't let it matter. You're not supposed to get hurt. Yet God is waiting - He is there waiting for us, as men, to acknowledge the hurt, the pain, the Wound.

"God is fiercely committed to you, to the restoration and release of your masculine heart," Eldredge tells us. "But a wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal. A wound you've embraced is a wound that cannot heal. A wound you think you deserved is a wound that cannot heal." (Wild at Heart, p. 106)

And this puts God - in relation to our Wound and His plan for initiating us as men - on a very determined course: to get us to come on His journey of initiation and in order to bring healing, He will wound us directly in the place we've been wounded.

And in that place, I can hide - from me, from you, from healing...but not from God.

Most men who live without God plan to save themselves by the false self or the impostor.

"So God must take it all away, " Eldredge says. "This often happens at the start of our initiation journey. He thwarts our plan for salvation; he shatters the false self." (Wild at Heart, p. 107)

Only until recently, I spent so much time, talent, and treasure in constructing and living from my false self. Pot, porn, and pride - these were the bricks and the mortar, the beams of steel from which I created what I believed to be an indestructible sanctuary. My life was a lie - and I believed it.

"God loves us too much to leave us there," Eldredge observes. "So He thwarts us, in many, many different ways. In order to take a man into his wound, so that he can heal it and begin the release of the true self, God will thwart the false self. He will take away all that you've leaned upon to bring you life." (Wild at Heart, pp. 108-109)

He sums it up boldly: "The real journey begins when the false self fails." (p. 110)

And this is battleground territory - where God is on one side, Satan on the other, and my heart, as a man, directly in the middle, in the dangerous line of fire. And I must choose sides...without losing heart. Because as God wounds me in my Wound, He is actually loving me.

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son." (Hebrews 12:5-6 NIV)

'What?' you might say. 'Discipline? Rebuke? Punishment? How can this help? How is this love? How is this God?'

Part of initiation is dangerous - but God is ultimately out to help us...and get rid of the false self.

"God thwarts us to save us," Eldredge says. "We think it will destroy us, but the opposite is true - we must be saved from what really will destroy us." (Wild at Heart, p. 112)

Luke spoke to this in his Gospel, sharing with us the words of Christ: "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?" (Luke 9:24-25 NIV)

As men, God invites us to leave behind the false self, drop the fig leaf, lose the mask, and follow Him into initiation. We, as men, can choose to do it ourselves or we can wait for God to take it all apart.

"But," Eldredge warns, "this is not the end of the road; it's the trailhead. What you are journeying toward is freedom, healing, and authenticity." (Wild at Heart, p. 113)

And, as in all paths of genuine initiation, we - as men - must also walk away from one of our greatest comforts.

Walking Away From The Woman

Please hear what Eldredge is saying: "I do not mean leave your wife. I mean you stop looking to her to validate you, stop trying to make her come through for you, stop trying to get your answer from her." (Wild at Heart, p. 113)

Once the false self is abandoned, a man is open to being vulnerable and exposed - and being comforted is always more attractive than pursuing the new boundary of authentic masculinity.

"What I am saying," Eldredge notes, "is that the masculine journey always takes a man away from the woman, in order that he may come back to her with his question answered. A man does not go to a woman to get his strength, he goes to her to offer it." (Wild at Heart, p. 115)

Let's be clear - Adam had God. And God, in grace, gave us - as men - the beauty, mystery, and glory of Eve. But something happened at the Fall - Adam chose Eve over God.

And it is in the Father's voice we, as men, hear the call of true healing and where it is found.

Eldredge concludes this chapter with a direct challenge: "We must reverse Adam's choice; we must choose God over Eve. We must take our ache to Him. For only in God will we find the healing of our wound." (Wild at Heart, p. 117)

So, men - you have a wound. So do I. Are we ready to return to the union with our Father, to seek the healing we desire and need?

NEXT WEEK: Wild At Heart (PART 7: Healing the Wound)