Eldredge talks about how we as men gravitate towards these films because we long to have a battle worth fighting for, a beauty we are longing to rescue, or an adventure that we are courageous enough to live. I’m very much a movie guy so I enjoyed these parts of the book where he refers back to movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, or even Indiana Jones. He cites examples of some of our favorite “manly men” films where the hero will likely undertake all three of these tasks. Eldredge asserts that every man has the innate desire to have “A Battle to Fight”, “A Beauty to Rescue”, and an “Adventure to Live”.

He pinpoints some of the tendencies that boys have in the ways that they play and behave and talks about how many boys grow up to be men who are unfulfilled and bored.

Wild at Heart starts by addressing the identity of mankind and how we were made in God’s image. Now in my early 30’s, with the upcoming men’s retreat that was going to be going over much of Eldredge’s book, I thought I’d give it another pass. I recalled thinking when I had read the book originally that it was good and it stirred me a little to want to go camping more but I didn’t get much more out of it. Wild at Heart was a book I had actually read before in my early 20’s and I had enjoyed the book. It was at this retreat where we spent much of our time unpacking some of the thoughts written by John Eldredge in his book, Wild at Heart. Eldridge has written every several other books such as Walking with God, Moving Mountains, and the feminine counterpart to this masculine work that he and his wife, Stasi Eldredge, wrote together.

This was a great place to have a men’s retreat. The air smelled sweeter with our distance from any large metros and I found myself breathing deeply and filling my lungs with its freshness. The pond reflected the tall trees and blue sky and had a small island near its center that featured a large wooden cross. Some of the men at the retreat fished there in our free time. The country out there in East Texas is wild with tall pine trees and the retreat we stayed at had a quiet pond. The retreat was held in Scottsville, TX which is right near Marshall. I attended a men’s retreat this past weekend with some 80 men from the congregation I currently serve, the Eastridge Church of Christ.

Book review wild at heart eldridge