Eldredge - Wild at heart - discovering the secret of a mans soul

WILD at
HEART

OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN ELDREDGE

Love and War (with Stasi Eldredge)

Fathered by God

Walking with God

Waking the Dead

Captivating (with Stasi Eldredge)

Epic

Desire

The Sacred Romance (with Brent Curtis)

WILD at
HEART

DISCOVERING THE SECRET
of A MANS SOUL

JOHN ELDREDGE

2001, 2010 by John Eldredge

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, www.yates2.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. 1979, 1980, 1982, 1990, 1994 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations noted The Message are from The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English. 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson.

Scripture quotations noted NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation,1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission.

ISBN 978-1-4002-0039-9 (TP)

ISBN 978-1-4002-0281-2 (revised)

ISBN 978-1-4002-8102-2 (IE)

ISBN 978-0-7852-6883-3 (HC)

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

For Samuel, Blaine, and Luke.

I love your warrior hearts.
You definitely have what it takes.

CONTENTS

Appendix
The Daily Prayer

My deep thanks to those who have helped me climb this mountain:

Sam, Blaine, Luke, Jenny, Aaron, Morgan, Cherie, Julie, Gary, Leigh, Travis, Sealy, and Stasi. Brian and Kyle at Thomas Nelson. The Thursday night poker group. And all those who have been praying for me, near and far.

Brent, for teaching me more about what it means to be a man than anyone else ever has, and Craig, for taking up the sword.

I know. I almost want to apologize. Dear Lorddo we really need another book for men?

Nope. We need something else. We need permission.

Permission to be what we aremen made in Gods image. Permission to live from the heart and not from the list of should and ought to that has left so many of us tired and bored.

Most messages for men ultimately fail. The reason is simple: they ignore what is deep and true to a mans heart, his real passions, and simply try to shape him up through various forms of pressure. This is the man you ought to be. This is what a good husband/father/Christian/churchgoer ought to do. Fill in the blanks from there. He is responsible, sensitive, disciplined, faithful, diligent, dutiful, etc. Many of these are good qualities. That these messengers are well-intentioned I have no doubt. But the road to hell, as we remember, is paved with good intentions. That they are a near total failure should seem obvious by now.

No, men need something else. They need a deeper understanding of why they long for adventures and battles and a Beautyand why God made them just like that. And they need a deeper understanding of why women long to be fought for, to be swept up into adventure, and to be the Beauty. For that is how God made them as well.

So I offer this book, not as the seven steps to being a better Christian, but as a safari of the heart to recover a life of freedom, passion, and adventure. I believe it will help men get their heart backand women as well. Moreover, it will help women to understand their men and help them live the life they both want. That is my prayer for you.

TEN YEARS LATER

Last week my boysnow young menand I had reason to visit our old neighborhood and the house they grew up in and spent all their boyhood years in. It was a poignant experience. I cant believe we used to play tag in that yard, Luke said. Its tiny. The front yard was once a kingdom for games and battles; now it could be crossed in a few strides of their long legs. No way, said Blaine stepping inside, these steps were gigantic. The famous steps they used to leap from the top landing into my arms below. I cant believe how small it all seems. You have had similar experiencesplaces and people that once loomed mythic lose their granduer when we return to them at a different time, in a different state of mind.

I feared such would happen when I reopened the pages of this book.

It is ten years since I wrote Wild at Heart. A lot of water has passed under the bridge. My boys are off at college now. The lines in my face have deepened. Ive logged a lot of miles with men in this time. I have more than a few new scars. Would I still believe what I wrote? Would it have proven true in the ten rugged years since I set these thoughts down?

The answer ismore so.

It is actually truer, if such a thing can be, far truer than I knew as a younger man. It rings eternal, and universal. God was in it then; he is in it still.

Jesus gave us a beautiful and simple test for the measure of anything when he said, almost offhand, You will know them by their fruits (Matt. 7:16 NASB). A cut-to-the-chase test. You can hold it up to reveal a church, movement, man, or nation. What is the fruit? What does it leave in its wake? Ive found it an immediate and revealing test.

And I am humbled to say, the fruit of this little book has been, well, unlike anything Ive ever seen. Utterly phenomenal. It has healed the lives of prisoners in Colombia, set the hearts of Catholic priests free in Slovakia. It has reached the halls of Congress and the back rooms of homeless shelters, restored the families of men in Australia, launched a movement of freedom and redemption in men around the world. It works. But you neednt take my word for it. Come and see for yourself.

I have tried to bring to this tenth anniversary edition the lessons we have learned since the books release, tried to clarify issues that brought confusion, and most importantly, added the practical guidance men need to realize the promise of this book. You will want to know that I also wrote a Field Manual to go along with it, a guided workbook that will deepen and ensure your experience with God here. Many men have found it helpful. We also created a DVD series that men have used in small bands of brothers with tremendous results.

May God find you through these pages, and restore you as his man.

John Eldredge
Colorado, 2010

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly... who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.