This is just going to be a micro-review, but I wanted to get a few thoughts down before too much slipped out of my mind.
I finished reading Wild At Heart, by John Eldredge
I really liked the book.
The first few chapters do an amazing job of putting into words things I have known to be true but couldn’t articulate.
I am trying really hard not to say too much here, because I will ether try to say what the book said and fail, or veer into impassioned rant territory and regret having published it on the internet.
Let me just say this, Eldredge does a great job of stating the problem faced by a lot of young men in the church. The first half of the book really resonated with me; leaving me wanting to run up mountains and tackle wildlife… that might be a slight overstatement, but I did come away from every chapter excited and feeling like I had really discovered something about myself and what God has for me.
The book could have been written to address conversations Heather and I had in the weeks prior to my reading the book where I was trying to express to Heather this almost despair I was feeling: That there were so few young men in the church because “the church” has nothing to offer young men. To read that there might be a place for passion and even *gasp* aggression in a man’s pursuit of Christ was exhilarating.
And then we come to the back half of the book. I remember reading Wild At Heart when I was in college, and I know the second half of the book is why I had written it off as “not for me.”
I still come away feeling like the book cannot answer the question “Ok this is amazing, I am ready to do this! Now what?”
In my second read-through, almost ten years later I have to admit that whatever is there has to be better than not having talked about the issue at all.
I suppose the book can’t possibly say what to do next, because in talking about the wild nature of God (as often expressed in nature) formulas and step-by-step plans aren’t going to explain what is there.
And now, suddenly, I am back where I started when I picked up the book again. I cannot properly express the ideas I am trying to express, but I know there is a book that did a really good job of stating the case.
Anyway… Glad that is written down, even if it isn’t coherent to anyone else… We shall resume stories of day to day life of Heather and Jordan shortly 🙂
-Jordan
Nelsons 