Wild at Heart | Week 6

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Week 6 | The Father’s Heart

Weather | 63° F | Humidity 87% | Wind: 8mph NE

5 Pax continued the book study at Adventure Park at 6:15 for the sixth week of Wild at Heart.  We had a FNG post this morning. Thank you Cowher for bringing an FNG. Welcome Cavalier to F3! Thank you to all the HIM that posted. All Pax are still encouraged to attend. Even if you don’t have the book, just show up to fellowship and grow spiritually with us.

The reading assignment was Chapter 6 – The Father’s Heart.

We began by watching this video:……. Just Kidding. No video this week. I actually had to prepare more material. Thank you everyone for sharing and carrying the discussion. We always manage to find enough to talk about that we never make it through the full chapter review. Which is great! I really enjoy getting to know each of you better. Thanks for sharpening each other, and participating on this journey with me.

BTW: If you really missed the video this week, you are really going to be disappointed to find out there is not another video for a few more weeks yet. In the meantime, why don’t you take the time to checkout some of the masculine movies that are mentioned in this book: Braveheart, Gladiator, A Perfect World, The Natural, Good Will Hunting, Fever Pitch….. OK I threw that last one in there for your M’s. It is a decent chic flick, but if you are watching alot of masculine movies, be sure to watch something with her too. I find movies like Fever Pitch a fair compromise, because at least there is some sports in it too. It is a decent movie, even if you aren’t a Red Sox fan.

Discussion

  • So John opened this chapter recalling an event that was an initiation into manhood by his grandfather. He had to go saddle up ‘Tony’ the biggest baddest horse Pops had and go round up a steer that got in to alfalfa. His grandfather had more confidence in him than he did. He succeeded and he realized that he does have what it takes. He began to get his question answered.
  • Are there any events in your life that you realized you do have what it takes? A masculine initiation to manhood. Perhaps from your father, grandfather or coach?

Desperate for Initiation

  • A man needs to know that he has what it takes
  • Maximus from Gladiator knew who he was when he confronted Commodus again.
  • The church teaches men to become Moral. While that is definitely a good start, it is terribly insufficient.
  • Paul says the law is given as a tutor to the child, but not to the son.
  • Every man needs someone like Robert E Lee. Someone to show them how its done, someone to motivate them to be better men.

How God Initiates a Man

  • Despite a man’s father’s failures to initiate him, God can take him on a journey to provide what is missing.
  • Only God can give man his name, only he sees what the man is.
    • Abraham
    • Jacob
    • Saul
  • Initiation involves a journey and a series of tests.
  • Are you asking God the right questions, or are you just trying to get God to make your life easier?
    • “God, why did you let this happen…”
    • “God, won’t you just…”
  • God requires a new set of questions:
    • “What are you trying to teach me here?”
    • “What issues in my heart are you trying to raise?”
    • “What is it you want me to see?”
    • “What are you asking me to let go of?”

Contempt for the Wound

  • A man is not supposed to get hurt, or show it. Suck it up and move on.
  • Most men minimize their wound.
  • A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept, cannot be healed.
  • Whatever is denied cannot be healed.

Thwarting the False Self

  • From the place of our woundedness, to cover it up, we construct a false self.
  • Men create an imposturous plan for redemption, that we must let go of.

Luke 9:24 (NKJV) “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

  • In order to take a man to his wound to heal it, God will take away everything a man has leaned upon.
    • Movie: The Natural His bat Wonder Boy shatters. He hits HR w/out it.
  • When we are taken there, the enemy will always tempt us to regain control, reconstruct our false self. We must remember that it is out of love that God thwarts our imposter.
  • If you have no clue what your false self may be:
    • Ask those you live with: “What is my effect on you?” “What am I like to live with?”
    • Ask those you work with: “What am I like to work with?”
    • “What don’t you feel free to bring up with me?”

Walking Away From the Woman

  • As we walk away from our false self, let down our fig leaf, we feel vulnerable and exposed. We will be tempted to turn to comforters for relief.
  • Stop looking to women to validate you.
  • A man needs a much bigger orbit than a woman, he needs a mission, a life purpose.
  • A man does not go to a woman to get his strength, he goes to her to offer it.
  • Adam had God, it was not good for man to be alone, so God gave Adam, Eve.
  • At the fall, Eve took the place of God in man’s life:
    • Adam was not deceived by the serpent.
    • There was a moment when Eve was fallen and Adam was not.
    • Adam felt like he was about to lose his soulmate and chose Eve over God.
  • Men worship and obsess over beautiful women.
  • We must choose God over Eve. Only in God will we find healing of our wound.
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the truth.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Homework | Read Chapter Seven: Healing the Wound

Thoughts for the week:

Are we made to be dependent? How does God heal our wound? Are there people in your life that you need to forgive?