Wild At Heart Chapter 6

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Wild At Heart Chapter 6

• The Fathers Voice
• Johns Oregon story 98-99
• The fact that he (Pop) believed (in me) made me
  believe it too.
• Most of our life changing moments are realized as
  such later.

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Desperate for Initiation

• A man needs to know his name. He needs to know he
  has what it takes.
• Not just knowledge of
• A deep knowing, the kind that comes when you have
  been there entered in, experienced it first hand
  in an unforgettable way.
• Movie clip
• This deep heart knowledge comes only through a
  process of initiation.

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• You have to know where you have come from you
  have to have faced a series of trials that test
  you you have to have taken a journey and you
  have to have faced your enemy.
• What does the church call a man to be?
• Moral
• This is pitifully insufficient. Morality is a
  good thing, but morality is never the point.
• General Lee story 102
• Where do we go for our answers? to whom can we
  turn? To a most surprising source.

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How God Initiates a Man102

• Gordon Dalby The healing of the masculine soul
  Despite a mans past and the failures of his own
  father to initiate him, God could take him on
  that journey.
• Johns reaction Will you let me initiate you?
• Who can give a man his this, his own name?
  George Macdonald asks
• God alone. For no one but God sees what the man
  is

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• Revelation 217 I will also give him a white
  stone with a new name written on it, known only
  to him who receives it.
• Not seagull or mamas boy
• The new name is not really new at all when you
  understand that it is your true name, the one
  that belongs to you.
• Psalm 139
• This passage makes it clear that we were
  personally uniquely planned and created, in our
  mothers womb by God Himself.

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• He had someone in mind and that someone has a
  name.
• This someone has also been under gone a terrible
  assault, and yet God remain committed to the
  realization of that same someone.
• The history of a mans realationship with God is
  the story of how God calls him out, takes him on
  a journey, and gives him his true name.
• Adam
• Abram-Abraham
• Jacob-Israel
• Saul-Paul

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• Even if your father did his job, he can only take
  you partway. There comes a time when you have to
  leave all that is familiar, and go on into the
  unknown with God.
• Initiation involves a journey and a series of
  tests, through which we discover our true name
  and our place in the story.
• Intitiation takes place in the field where simple
  lessons turn into larger lessons about life and
  self and God.
• Instead of asking God why did you let this
  happen to me? or why wont you just help me
  succeed, with my kids, fix my marriage?

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• Ask the questions that take you into the journey
  of initiation with God.
• What are you trying to teach me here?
• What issues in my heart are you trying to raise
  through this?
• What is it you want me to see?
• What are you asking me to let go of?
• God has been trying to initiate you for a long
  time. What is in the way is how youve mishandled
  your wound and the life you have constructed as a
  result.

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Contempt for the Wound 105

• Men are taught over and over when they are boys
  that a wound that hurts is shameful A wound
  that stops you from continuing to play is a
  girlish wound. He who is truly a man keeps
  walking, dragging his guts behind Robert Bly
• Our wound is an immense source of shame
• Look at our movies
• Most men minimize their wound its not a big
  deal. Lots of people get hurt when they are
  young. Im okay.

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• Psalm 10922 King David For I am poor and needy,
  my heart is wounded within me
• Or they admit it happened , but deny it is a
  wound because they deserved it. They embrace
  their wound.
• The only thing more tragic than the tragedy that
  happens to us is the way we handle it.
• God is fiercely committed to you and the
  restoration and release of your masculine heart.
  But a wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept
  is a wound that can not heal. A wound you have
  embraced cannot heal. A wound you think you
  deserved cannot heal.

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• The spiritual life begins with the acceptance of
  our wounded self Brennan Manning
• most men deny their wound-deny that it happened,
  deny that it hurt, certainly denying that its
  shaped the way they live today
• Gods initiation will take us into the the very
  place we have been wounded.

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Thwarting the False Self 107

• From the place of our woundedness we construct a
  false self. We find a few gifts that work for us
  and we try to live off of them.
• Stuarts story 107
• Brennan Manning story 107
• The imposter is our plan for salvation
• In order to initiate us God must thwart our plan
  for salvation, he shatters the false self.

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• Our plan for redemption is hard to let go of, it
  clings to our heart like an octopus.
• Brads story and letter 107-108
• Why would God do something so cruel? Why wound He
  do something so terrible as to wound us in the
  place of our deepest wound?
• Luke 924 page 108
• God thwarts the false self and takes a man into
  his wound, so that He can heal it and begin to
  release the true self.
• The Natural
• This is the critical moment in a mans life, when
  all he has counted on comes crashing down, when
  his golden bat breaks into pieces.

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• His investments fail, his company lets him go,
  his church fires him, his wife walks out, he is
  leveled by illness
• Will he stay in the game? Will he shrink back
  into the dugout? Will he scramble to try to put
  things back together.
• The true test of a man actually starts when he
  can no longer rely on what hes used all is life.
• The real journey begins when the false self
  fails.
• Roy Hobbs revisited

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• Stuart (left), Alexs (died) stories revisited
  110
• In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in
  a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost
  Dante
• Johns story revisited 110
• This is a very dangerous moment, when God seems
  set against everything that has meant life for
  us Satan spies his opportunity, and leaps to
  accuse God in our hearts
• God is angry with you.
• Hes disappointed with you
• If He loved you He would make things smoother
• Hes not out for your best , you know.

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• The enemy always tempts us back towards control,
  to recover and rebuild the false self.
• We must remember it is out of love that God
  thwarts our imposter
• 5 But you have forgotten that the Scriptures say
  to God's children, "When the Lord punishes you,
   don't make light of it, and when he corrects
  you, don't be discouraged.
• 6 The Lord corrects the people he loves and
  disciplines those he calls his own." Hebrews
  125-6 (CEV)
• We must be saved from what really destroys us
• Brad, Stuart, Alex, John page 112
• We need to simply accept the invitation to leave
  all that weve relied on and venture out with God

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• We can chose to do it ourselves or we can wait on
  God to bring it all down.
• If you have no clue as to what your false self
  maybe, then a starting point would be to ask
  those around you
• What is my effect on you?
• What am I like to live/work with?
• What dont you feel free to bring up with me?
• If you 112
• Losing the false self is painful, even though it
  is a mask, its one we have worn for years and
  losing it can feel like losing a close friend.

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• Underneath the mask is all the hurt and fear we
  have been running from, hiding from.
• Steel bars Andy Gullahorn 113

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Walking away from the woman 113

• No, do not leave your wife
• Stop looking to her to validate you
• Stop trying to make her come through for you
• Stop trying to get your answer from her
• Passive men and violent men 113-114
• A man needs a much bigger orbit than a woman
• He needs a mission
• A life purpose
• He needs to know his name
• Only then is he fit for the a woman. For only
  then does he have something to invite her into

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• The masuline journey takes a man away from the
  woman, in order that he may come back to her with
  his question answered
• A man does not go to a woman to get his strength,
  he goes to her to offer it.
• What are we seeking from the golden haired woman?
• What ache are we trying to fill with her?
• Mercy, comfort, beauty, ..
• God
• What we are looking for is God
• At our fall Eve took the place of God in a mans
  life.

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• Adam was not decieved by the serpent, did you
  know that?
• And Adam was not the one deceived it was the
  woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 1
  Timothy 214 (NIV)
• Adam Chose Eve over God 116
• If not why do we worship her with art, poetry,
  music, drama
• She is the pinacle of creation, the very
  embodiment of Gods beauty and mystery and
  tenderness and allure.
• When we long for her we long for God

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• You will be compelled to return to this familiar
  ground when you feel lonely, beat up, or longing
  for comfort in some way. This will intensify the
  closer you come to your wound. This pull towards
  temporary comforters may seem overwhelming.
• But if this is the water you are truly thirsty
  for, then why do you remain thirsty after you
  have had a drink?
• Because it is the wrong well.
• We must reverse Adams choice, we must chose God
  over Eve. We must take our ache to Him.
• For only in God will we find the healing of our
  wound