A Longing in Every Man's Heart

You have a strength, and it is needed. When a man feels that to be true of him, he rises up and engages like a man. As a boy begins to become a young man, there are some key issues at stake. He needs to know he possesses a genuine strength, and he needs to know that strength is ultimately for others. There is a bravery that must be cultivated in him, for it will be called upon in every other stage of his life. Adventure comes into play to develop the masculine soul, because adventure calls us out, requires us to be something we want to be but aren’t sure we are. Adventure nourishes and strengthens a man’s heart in ways that cannot be fully articulated, must be experienced. It works like nothing else I know. As Norman Maclean wrote of the men who parachute into rugged country to fight forest fires,

It is very important to a lot of people to make unmistakably clear to themselves and to the universe that they love the universe but are not intimidated by it and will not be shaken by it, no matter what it has in store. Moreover, they demand something from themselves early in life [the cowboy stage] that can be taken ever after as a demonstration of this abiding feeling. (Young Men and Fire)

As I explained in Wild at Heart, adventure is a spiritual longing set in the heart of every man. Notice that in the tales told in Scripture, whenever God gets hold of a man he takes that man into an adventure of the first order. Abraham, called out of Ur, to follow this God to a land he has never seen, never to return. Jacob, wrestling with God in the wilderness in the dead of night. Peter, called out of the boat to Christ in a raging storm. Paul, called out of his prominent role as the ultimate Jew, to become apostle to the Gentile world of east Asia. The stories of his journeys are one narrow escape after another.

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