Has it really been ten years since John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart was published? I guess so.
This book was one of the first books to say, “Christian guys don’t need to be pansies” and for that, Eldredge deserves major props. I’ve blogged about this attitude previously, so I won’t rehash my comments here. I agree with Eldredge – wholeheartedly.
But my favorite part of Wild at Heart is not what Eldredge writes about men but what he writes about women. “Every woman years to be fought for…Every woman wants and adventure to share...Every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil.” That alone is worth the price of admission.
If you don’t know, I love everything about women. When someone wrote about “Wine, women and song,” he was writing about the three things that express God’s creative diversity and complexity better than anything else on earth. They’re the most awesomely, paradoxically, perplexingly beautiful creatures God ever thought of. And the one who lives with me as my wife is the pinnacle of his art!
And this is where Eldredge is at his best, speaking about the relationship between man and woman. He enjoys all men to rise above the silly feminine idea of a man that pervades the church. Let the women be women, and you be a man. Sweep your wife off her feet, let he feel desired and fought for, and invite her into a grand adventure of life together. Love your wife with a masculine intensity that does not allow you to take her for granted or put her on a shelf. This is the core of his thoughts, although he expands far beyond it.
I’ve read Wild at Heart before, and while I don’t agree with everything Eldredge says, I do think that this one idea is worth the price of the book. It is close to my heart because it is something I had to face in my marriage. We had to unlearn the way I thought I was supposed to love my wife and rebuild our marriage almost from the ground up. It was hard, and I’m not bragging, but I don’t know if most marriages would have survived it; but ours did. And it was in no small part thanks to God speaking to me through Wild at Heart and teaching me a better Christian masculinity.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Funny, I bought this book probably 6 years ago and never read it, I think I will try to give it a look soon. I bought it because I was witnesing to a guy I ran in to twice in Madison, WI. He was agnostic but we had some good conversations and I thought we were making some headway. He told me about this book, which he had read, and said “I’m not a Christian, but if I was a Christian, I think this is a book I would need to read.” So I told him I would look at it and we would talk the next time we met. I ordered it used on half.com thinking that if I kept an open mind and read something he recommended it would maybe help him keep an open mind to the gospel. Unfortunately, I ran into him briefly and got to tell him that I ordered it, but then I never ran in to him again, and I also never read it after I got it. One of my older cousins really was into this book too.
Good book. Worth reading. Not the best on the subject – Eldredge tends to be a little flowery – but good.