book review   

Wild at Heart - by John Eldredge

book review by Peter Byon

Caveat Emptor:  Not everyone may like this book.  If your concept of an ideal Christian man is a 'nice guy' – someone who offends nobody and merely goes about just dutifully carrying out his obligations without ever letting his deep passions motivate his actions – then you may positively dislike it.  If, however, you feel that God has designed and destined a man to be far more than this – if statements like, "The core of a man's heart is undomesticated, and that is good" and "Life needs a man to be fierce – and fiercely devoted" ring true in your heart without raising your hackles, then I urge you to read this book and live out its message with wholehearted vigor and passion.

"the Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name" (Ex 15:3)

According to Eldredge, design reveals purpose, and purpose reveals destiny.  To understand what a man is and what he was made for, you must observe the attributes of his Designer. Basically, there are three fundamental longings in all men, put there by the One in whose image they were made:  a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.  Why?  Because God Himself is, among other things, a fierce battler who loves to come through when it counts, a risk-taker who took perhaps the biggest risk of all by granting us free will, and a romantic at heart who loves to love and be loved.  These may be foreign and even offensive propositions for some, but the author cajoles the reader to break away the crust of incorrect presuppositions and preconceptions about the Lord and true masculinity. I would also like to clarify two things at point: First, this is absolutely not an invitation to be a caveman. In fact, no women need fear a book that unequivocally praises Eve as "the "crown of creation". Second, by "wild" the author does not mean reckless or irresponsible. Rather, he uses it in the same sense that nature is wild – untamed, sometimes dangerous, living out in its natural state.

 

"Yes, a man is a dangerous thing.  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."

 

So, if you can get over the potentially tricky first few chapters without tossing the book, you'll be richly rewarded with profound insights about how a man of God can be all he can be in Christ. Eldredge, in a passionate, easy-to-read writing style that is direct and at times seductively mystical, observes that because of the way Adam failed to come through for his wife Eve in the garden, every one of his male descendants is destined to be haunted in his heart by The Question:  Am I a man?...Do I have what it takes – will I deliver – when it counts?  Since the Fall, the heart of every male has been the target of a brutal, carefully planned assault by the kingdom of darkness. Tragically, the primary perpetrators of these attacks are our very own fathers, and as a result of these crippling heart-wounds, too many of us go through life not feeling like real men.  To compensate, we create a "false self" of strength or passivity, where all our actions are merely manifestations of fear and cowardice. Eldredge describes this as "strength gone bad". Worst of all, we go through life seeking the answer to The Question from various dead ends – wealth, titles, accomplishments, and especially women.  The author insists that only when we are courageous enough to allow the Father Himself to heal our hearts and answer The Question by conferring upon us our true masculine identity in Christ, will we be free to live out our destinies from our hearts – to fight the right battles, to live the right adventures, and to rescue the beauty through self-sacrificing love.

 

I came across Wild at Heart three summers ago when the author's attorney, with whom I was conducting business in furtherance of my own radical and risky adventure with God, insisted that I owed it to myself as a man to read it. Compelled to embrace something that would cause a burly, staid lawyer to suddenly light up with passion, I read this book and was profoundly affected.  I've reread it regularly since that pivotal summer.  I would go so far as to say that its simple message has changed my life, and I would claim that it could do the same for you.

 

"And so this is not a book about the seven things a man ought to do to be a nicer guy.  It is a book about the recovery and release of a man's heart, his passions, his true nature, which he has been given by God."