WILD AT HEARTThe Battle for a Man’s Heart

WIWIWIIWIWIWIW LILILLILILILI D AT HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH AEAEAAEAEAEAEARTTThe Battle for a Man’s Heart

…the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12

Genesis 32:22-32 – Jacob wrestles with God

Exodus – The life of Moses

Matthew 3:13 – 4:11 – Jesus is baptized and tempted in the wilderness

These men journeyed with God and were tested

An Adventure to Live

Legends of the Fall is a film about three young men coming of age in the early 1900’s. Alfred, the oldest, is practical, pragmatic, cautious. He heads off to the Big City to become a businessman and a politician. Yet, something inside him dies. He becomes a hollow man. Samuel, the youngest, is still a boy in many ways, a tender child – literate, sensitive, timid. He is killed early in the film and we know he was not ready for battle. Then there was Tristan, the middle son. He is wild at heart. He embodies the West – he catches and breaks the wild stallion, fights the grizzly with a knife, and wins the beautiful woman. I have yet to meet a man who wants to be Alfred or Samuel. I’ve yet to meet a woman who wants to marry one.

Eldredge is not saying we need to fight grizzlies in order to be “wild at heart” but that we need adventure, to have the courage to not shrink back from challenges, the strength to face evil when called upon and to be everything we were meant to be as men. As he calls it, an authentic masculinity.

Deep in a man’s heart are some fundamental questions that simply cannot be answered at the kitchen table. Who am I? What am I made of? What am I destined for? It is fear that keeps a man at home where things are neat and orderly and under his control. But the answers to his deepest questions are not to be found on television or in the refrigerator. Out there on the burning desert sands, lost in a trackless waste, Moses received his life’s mission and purpose. He is called out, called up into something much bigger than he ever imagined, much more serious than CEO or “prince of Egypt.” Under foreign stars, in the dead of night, Jacob received a new name, his real name. No longer is he a shrewd business negotiator, but now he is one who wrestles with God. The wilderness trial of Christ is, at it’s core, a test of His identity. “If you are who you think you are…” If a man is ever to find out who he is and what he’s here for, he has got to take that journey for himself. He has got to get his heart back.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives. – Albert Schweitzer

He begins to die, that quits his desires. – George Herbert

Are you there?

Say a prayer for the Pretender

Who started out so young and strong

Only to surrender – Jackson Browne “The Pretender”

“Christianity, as it currently exists, has done some terrible things to men. When all is said and done, I think that most men in the church believe that God put them on the earth to be a good boy…if they will try real hard they can reach the lofty summit of becoming…a nice guy. That’s what we hold up as models of Christian maturity: Really Nice Guys. We don’t drink, smoke, or swear; that’s what makes us men. In all your boyhood dreams growing up, did you ever dream of becoming a Nice Guy? (Ladies, was the Prince of your dreams dashing…or merely nice?)”

What do you think of this passage? Do you agree with Eldredge? Why or why not?

Why Does God Create Adam? What is man for? Most men think that they are simply here on earth to kill time – and it’s killing them. But the truth is precisely the opposite. The secret longing of your heart, whether it’s to build a boat and sail it, to write a symphony and play it, to plant a field and care for it – those are the things you were made to do. That’s what you’re here for. Explore, build, conquer. But it’s going to take risk and danger, and there’s the catch. Are we willing to live with the level of risk God invites us to? Something inside us hesitates. Why does a man long for a battle to fight? Because when we enter the story of Genesis, we step into a world at war. The lines have already been drawn. Evil is waiting to make it’s next move…God now has an enemy and so do we. Man is not born into a sitcom or a soap opera…This is not Home Improvement; it’s Saving Private Ryan. There will be many, many battles to fight on many different battlefields. Do I have what it takes? Am I up to the challenge?

And why does Adam long for a beauty to rescue? Because there is Eve. He is going to need her and she is going to need him. In fact, Adam’s first and greatest battle is just about to break out, as a battle for Eve(Genesis 3)…What does he do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He says not a word, doesn’t lift a finger. He won’t risk, he won’t fight, and he won’t rescue Eve. He denied his very nature and went passive. And every man after him, every son of Adam, carries in his heart now the same failure…We won’t risk, we won’t fight and we won’t rescue Eve. We truly are a chip off the old block. Do I have what it takes? Am I up to the challenge?

The story of Adam’s fall is every man’s story. It is simple and straightforward, almost mythic in it’s brevity and depth. And so every man comes into the world setup for a loss of heart. Then comes the story we are much more aware of – our own story. Where Adam’s story seems simple and straightforward, our own seems complex and detailed; many more characters are involved, and the plot is sometimes hard to follow. But the outcome is always the same: a wound in the soul. 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.

In order to understand how a man receives a wound, you must understand the central truth of a boy’s journey to manhood. Masculinity is bestowed. A boy learns who he is and what he’s got from the company of men. He cannot learn it any other place. Dad would be the first man in his life, and forever the most important man. Above all, he would answer the question for his son and give him his name. Throughout the history of man given to us in the Scripture, it is the father who gives the blessing and thereby “names” the son.

Femininity can never bestow masculinity. My mother would often call me sweetheart, but my father called me tiger. Which description do you think a boy would want to head? He will turn to his mother for comfort, but he turns to Dad for adventure, for the chance to test his strength, and most of all, to get the answer to his question.

The Father-Wound In the case of violent fathers, the boy’s question is answered in a devastating way. “Do I have what it takes? Am I a man Papa?” No, you are a mama’s boy, an idiot, a seagull. Those are the defining sentences that shape a man’s life. The assault wounds are like a shotgun blast to the chest.

Some fathers give a wound merely by their silence; they are present, yet absent to their sons. The silence is deafening…the question goes unanswered. “Do I have what it takes? Am I a man, Daddy?” Their silence is the answer: “I don’t know…I doubt it…you’ll have to find out for yourself…probably not.”

The message delivered by the wound: You are on your own. There is no one in your corner, no one to show you the way and above all, no one to tell you if you are or are not a man. The core question of your soul has no answer, and can never get one. What does a boy do with that?

Taking Our Question To Eve …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. Look at the lengths men will go to find the golden-haired woman. They have fought duels over her beauty; they have fought wars. You see, every man remembers Eve. We are haunted by her. And somehow we believe that if we could find her, get her back, then we’d also recover with her our own lost masculinity. It’s a deep lie wedded to a deep truth. Eve is a garden of delight(Song 4:16). But she’s not everything you want, everything you need- not even close. The answer to your question can never, ever be found there.

Femininity can arouse masculinity but it can never bestow masculinity.

1.! What is Godliness? What do you think of when someone is described as a real Godly man? How do you think a man of God would act if the Spirit of God got a hold of him (e.g. Sampson)?

2.! Do you agree with the idea that masculinity (i.e. Who a man is and what he's got) is bestowed?

3.! Do you think it is important for a man to have a deep sense of his identity/masculinity before entering into a dating/marriage relationship with a woman? How have you seen this work positively or negatively in life?

4.! Where is the battle for your heart most evident in your life? Why do you think that is?

Wild At Heart Week 1: Personal Reflection

What is your wound? Can you put words to it? Do you remember how it was given-the way it came? And what was the message of that wound-or that series of wounds?

We need to know who we are and if we have what it takes. What do we do with that ultimate question? What have you done with your question? Where have you taken it? 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 the soul that it will compel us to find a resolution. Do you see it driving you? In what ways? Another way of asking this is, what would feel like death to lose, or to know you will never, ever attain?