Over the last few days I've read this first chapter three times. Each time through I've worked with it a little differently. On the first read through I took a highlighter (I used a pen last year) to mark the things that stood out to me. Second glance I made notes on 3x5 cards. Third time was slower, smaller sections, and trying to condense the essentials on to a single 3x5 card. This method has taken time, and that time has given me a lot of time to think and reflect on the text.
I'll be honest I'm at an interesting point in life to be doing this. I'm at a point when I probably feel least like a man than I ever have before, but I think that's why I have been led to begin this now. It's at a time when I feel like I have as little credibility in this area as possible.
I'm still not totally sure how to tackle this, being a man I know how we think and about the time we spend reading stuff like this, so I want to keep it short and simple (as I fill the first several sentences with background that probably isn't all that important). And so I'm going to break this chapter up and just tackle a few pages at a time.
Three ideas stand out to me in the first pages of chapter 1: Wilderness, Adventure, Identity.
These three things are central to the whole idea of being a man. When we look at the creation story in Genesis we see that man was made in the wilderness and then placed in the garden to work it. From the very beginning we were made in the unknown, unexplored, terrain of the world. "The core of a man's heart is undomesticated, and that is good."
The wilderness is where adventure takes place. This is defined differently for each individual. For me adventure is found in nature. Backpacking, canoeing, camping, hiking, wading, stuff like that are moments I long for and can't get enough of. For someone else working on a car is an adventure. Putting something together, building it and watching it come together drives them to see what they can do. And the joy and excitement they have when the machine actually starts, makes all the work worth it. (We'll look more at Adventure in an upcoming post.)
Adventure leads to identity. All of us are born with questions on our hearts, "Who am I? What am I made of? What am I destined for?" I've asked these questions so much over the last few years. Searching for these answers hasn't been the easiest, figuring out how to hasn't been either. I have a longing for nature and the wilderness to be alone and able to sort through things, but the opportunities haven't been that opportune.
And all of this seems so hard to come by at times. All of it seems to be under attack. "Society at large can't make up its mind about men", and because of that we lack real men more than ever. But the reason that this attack has even begun is because men are dangerous, especially a Man of God. The enemy wants us separated from the wilderness, bogged down with no time for adventures, so that our true identity becomes hidden. Because without our true identity as a Man of God, we are just hollow shells that are here to be productive until we die.
That isn't the life I want, and I highly doubt that you do either. We were made for more than that.
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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