Wild At Heart Chapter 3

• The question that Haunts Every Man

• “The Tragedy of Life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

Albert Schweitzer

• “He begins to die, that quits his desires.”George Herbert

Panthera Leo- King of the Beasts (page 40-41)

• Zoo Lion Story. How did it make you feel? Thoughts?

• “After years of living in a cage, a lion no longer believes it is a lion…. And a man no longer believes he’s a man”Thoughts?

The Lion of Judah? (Pages 41-44)

• “If man is the image of the Lion of Judah, how come there are so many lonely women, so many fatherless children, so few men around?”

• Story of TV sports father

• Story of “James Dean” neighbor

• Have you known men like this?

• We are caricatures of masculinity

• Couch potatoes

• Distant, disengaged fathers and husbands

• Macho men

• “How come when men look into their hearts they don’t discover something valiant and dangerous, but instead find anger, lust, and fear?”

• “The Mass of Men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Henry David Thoreau

• “All men die, few men ever live.” William Wallace- Braveheart

• “The real life of the average man seems a universe away from the desires of his heart.”

• There is no battle to fight, unless it is:

• Traffic and meetings

• Hassles and bills

• The swords and castles of our boyhood have long been replaced with pencils and cubicles, the six shooters and cowboy hats laid aside for minivans and mortgages

• Why are many men so “angry”

• Airplane story

• Toy shop story

• Stop light story

• What are some of your stories? What makes

you angry?

• Men are angry and really don’t know why

How come there are so many “sports widows”?

• TV sports, news, etc.

• Our hobbies, golf, on-line trading, etc.

• Our careers

• Why?

• It’s the biggest adventure many of them ever taste. There is excitement and adventure and risk in a world of chores and tedious routine.

• So many guys have been told to put that adventurous spirit behind them and “be responsible” meaning live only for duty.

• If a man does not find those things for which his heart is made, if he is never even invited to live for them from his deep heart, he will look for them in some other way.

• Why do some men fall into the trap of affairs?

• Not for love

• Not even for sex

• But for “adventure”

• Why is pornography the number one snare of men? What makes it so addictive?

• “It makes him feel like a man without requiring something of him. The less a man feels like a real man the more vulnerable he is to porn.”

• Every man knows something’s happened, something's gone wrong, we just don’t know what it is.

Our Fear (page 44-48)

• John’s acting story

• Could you relate to this in some way?

• Our fear: To be exposed, found out, discovered as an impostor, not really a man.

• A man knows he is made to come through but this question haunts us:

• Do I have what it takes?

• Can I come through?

• Will I?

• Again and again?

• Every man feels that the world is asking him to be something he doubts very much he has it in him to be.

• How do you see yourself as a man?

• Are words like strong, passionate, and dangerous words you would chose?

• Do you have the courage to ask those in your life what they think of you as a man?

• What words do you feel they would chose?

• Do you se yourself as William Wallace or Robert the Bruce?

Useful things I can Do• Be nice

• Make a bed

• Dig a hole

• Write books

• Sing alto or bass

• Read a map

• Drive a car

Useful things I can’t do• Chop down big trees and cut them into lumber or

firewood• Handle a horse, train a dog, or tend a her of

animals• Handle a boat without panicking others• Throw a fastball, curve, or slider• Load shoot, and clean a gun or bow and arrow. Or

use either of them, or a spear, net, snare, boomerang, or blowgun to obtain meat.

• Defend myself with my bare hands

• “Maybe it’s an okay report card for a person, but I don’t know any persons… for a guy, it’s not good.”

Garrison Keillor

• John’s Alaska story, thoughts?

• How do most men feel about their readiness to fight, to live with risk, to capture the beauty?

• Like we have a whistle

• Why don’t we act like the men we are called to be?

– We doubt we have any strength to offer– We think if we did offer what strength we

do have, it wouldn’t be enough

• What went wrong?– The fall of man– Our own story

A look at Adam (pages 48-51)

• Why did God create Adam?

• If you know what something is designed to do then you know it’s purpose in life. You know what it is made for.

• Retriver- loves the water

• Lion loves to hunt

• a hawk loves to soar

• Desire reveals design, and design, reveals destiny.

• Our design is revealed by our desires.

• What was man made for? Let’s look at our desires.

• Adventure• God created us to subdue the earth

• Find the equator, climb Mt. Everest

• Cross the oceans, conquer the jungle

• discover the molecule, something new

• Paint, write, compose

• We were made to explore, build, conquer – not just pass the time as many men think.

• Young boys know this is their purpose, many men hesitate at the level of risk God calls us to.

• A battle to fight• We were created to fight a battle

• Adam was created in a world at war, not a sitcom. He had an enemy.

• Satan had already fallen

• A beauty to rescue• Eve was not present when Adam was

warned by God about the tree.

• God knew Adam and Even would be attacked.

• Why didn’t God warn Adam about the temptation? God believed in Adam and trusted him to fight.

• Where was Adam when Eve was being deceived by the serpent?

• What does Adam do?

• Nothing- he does not say a word, does not lift a finger,he does not fight, he does not rescue Eve. The first real man remains passive and paralyzed.

• Every man repeats the sin of Adam, everyday, we won’t risk, we won’t fight, we won’t rescue Eve. We are a chip off the old block.

Adam’s Failure

• Didn’t fight for Eve

• Denied his nature

• Went passive

• Let Eve try to fight it herself • We follow his failure

A look at Eve• Adam’s ezer kengdo- helper-lifesaver

• Life giver, Adam’s ally

• Believed the serpent and did not trust the heart of God

• “Eve was convinced that God was withholding something from her. Not even the extravagance of Eden could convince her that God’s heart was good.” Jan Meyers The Allure of Hope

• “When Eve was deceived, the artistry of being a woman took a fateful dive into the barren places of control and loneliness.”

• Now every daughter of Eve wants to control her surroundings, her relationship and her God. No longer is she vulnerable, now she will be grasping, no longer does she simply want to share the adventure, she wants to control it.”

• As for her beauty, she either hides it in fear and anger, or uses it to secure her place in the world.

• “In our fear that no one will speak on our behalf or protect us or fight for us, we start to recreate our surroundings so we don’t feel defenseless.”

• Daughters of Eve usually become rigid or clingy.

• She is no longer simply inviting

• She is either hiding in busyness or demanding Adam come through for her; usually an odd combination of both.

Eve’s failure

• She was created as Adam’s ally. Meant to share adventure, help him fight

• Eve was deceived very easily

• Did not trust God’s heart

• Tried to control her world

Posers• Adam blows it and knows that

something has gone wrong within him. He is no longer what he was meant to be.

• What does he do?

• He hides

• “I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid” Genesis 3:10

• Where do men today hide:

–In gym

–At office

–In the garage

–In the garden

–Behind the newspaper

–Behind our personality

• Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a façade, an elaborate fig leaf, a Brilliant disguise.

• Friend’s nightmare story, thoughts?

• We feel like imposters We are faking our way through life feeling as though “any day now I will be found out”

• We pick only

* Battles we know we can win* Adventures we know we can handle* Beauties we know we can rescue

• Mechanic story- thoughts?

• Board room story -thoughts?

• Sports coach story –thoughts

• “It was the biggest bunch of poser I have ever met…outside the church”

• Church story (page 54-55)

• Thoughts?

Strength Gone Bad• We become either violent or passive • We are covering up for our weakness and

insecurity• Violent• Physical- Cain kills Abel, Physical abuse • Verbal abuse- Christian men wives and

children and Pastor e-mail examples• Civil war story- thoughts?• Achievers (socially acceptable forms of

violent men) casualties tend to be their marriages, their families and their health.

• Passive

• Abraham is a good man, a friend of God, but he is also a coward.

• Abraham said that Sarah was his sister, not once but twice.

• Isaac- Abraham’s son repeated the same lie about his wife Rebekah.

• Other passive men

• Men who won’t commit to the woman they have been with for years

• Men that won’t stand up for what they think

• Men that hide behind a fig leaf of niceness and spirituality

• Men that hide behind the newspaper or in front of the TV or computer and disengage from our families.

• John’s story of day after the wedding and the theater-thoughts?

• The Evidence is clear: Adam and Eve’s fall sent a tremor through the human race. A fatal flaw entered their lives and has been passed down to every son and daughter.

• Every little boy and every little girl comes into this world set up for a loss of heart

• Even if he can’t quite put it to words, every man is haunted by the question

• “Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes… when it counts?

• What follows this is a story that is much more personal and that we are much more familiar with.

• Next time Chapter 4 “The Wound”