Title Tuesday #2: Wild At Heart...

So it's Saturday and that means it's time to talk about ALL THINGS BOY! I have been looking into John Eldredge's book "Wild at Heart." I know that my views on the first part of the book will not be popular among Christians but it was interesting for me to read knowing that I have been recommended this book several times over the past years. I am glad that I never read this book to help understand my husband, Anthony, because even the first chapter was completely counter to who he is. Here are a few thoughts I had and they are in no particular order of the book so far and I'm just digging in. There certainly could be things that I relate to, understand, and find to be biblical truth throughout the book but so far...here are my thoughts.

Eldredge identifies three burning desires that every man has in his heart. They are A Battle to Fight, An Adventure to Live, and A Beauty to Rescue.  If you can believe it, this is where my head starts to spin and think of all sorts of counter arguments for these things. Eldredge seems to quote movies and talk about film characters more than he bases his thoughts on scripture. I'll break it down into each of the desires...

A Battle To Fight

The author makes a point that "Aggression is part of the masculine design..." I can agree with this in part and then I have questions as it continues. I have noticed in my knowledge of men (which is pretty extensive) that they do tend to gear toward the violent. An example is my nephew, who is only 4 years old, leans toward superhero movies, toys that have weapons attached, and pretends to fight foes that we can't see. Is this due to his male nature or is it because he has a desire to please his father and his father loves those types of characters and movies?! You tell me? When he was a small baby...he was always affectionate, sweet, and cuddly. The violent behaviors really didn't begin until he had seen these images in media and learned that they were the HERO of the story. Maybe men just want to please their fathers and be a hero?! Maybe it's not about a warrior of war and slaughtering people concept and more about being the HERO of everything. I am more inclined to believe that they long to be HEROES because we are made in God's image and I know no bigger Hero! I also believe that their nature being like God's....makes them wish to please their father. I see that in Jesus as well. He was all about pleasing his Father. 

An Adventure to Live

Eldredge's point in this is that God created Adam as a wild being and only after making Eve was he put in the Garden of Eden. I do not read that in Genesis 2:4-9. This would imply that the Garden was created for Eve's benefit and that he was okay with frustrating Adam to be out of his element even before sin entered the picture. That doesn't really make sense of God to me. I realize that my biblical knowledge is limited and maybe I am missing something here but I do not view Adam as a wild creature before Eve's arrival. Actually...If I were to be complete honest...it seems like Eve is the one out looking for adventure and to get into some trouble. It seems to me that this demonstrates that men are genuinely usually content until someone tells them that they shouldn't be. I have to tell you that my view of it is more congruent with my husband and friends of the male gender than what I am reading from Eldredge. Most of my guy friends are completely chill  and relaxed and only want to be happy. The females whom they have dealt with in relationships have at times created discontent in them. Now, I should note, I do think Men like adventure in the sense of enjoying their lives and looking for new and different thrills. My husband is a very adventurous man and enjoys new experiences but is he wild??? I would not call it that at all. He is one of the most content and relaxed people I know and I never see him just itching to "get out of the garden."

A Beauty to Rescue

This section for me was not necessarily proved false but I am not sure it can be proved true without looking to secular sources instead of the gospel. I am not finding this trend in the gospel, of men always wanting a beauty to rescue. Sure, there are stories of rescue and stories of men who were pursuing women but overall the gospel is about men's search for self, connection to God, and purpose. Now, if we are looking at popular culture like books, movies, and tv shows....I start to see the references. Fairy tales are always centered around a beautiful girl getting rescued and so are tv shows and movies that center around the handsome guy sweeping the Hollywood starlet off her feet. I think this story gets perpetuated each generation with differing modern storylines. I do not find it in the gospel the way that Eldredge seems to be pointing out. 

This is what I have come to in reading about these core desires of men. I'm not sure I agree that these are the desires. I think they may just be the following:

A Search for Purpose

A Need to be the Hero

A Need to make my Daddy proud

What do you think? Those of you who father boys...Can you support any of Eldredge's ideas? Those of you who do consider yourselves to be very knowledgeable about the Bible, do you? I'm curious, I don't always think I am right but these are my thoughts so far. More next week....