Our Search for an Answer. . . .From a previous post, John Eldredge continues: First and foremost, we still need to know what we never heard, or heard so badly from our fathers. We need to know who we are and if we have what it takes. What do we know with that ultimate question? Where do we go to find an answer? In order to help you find the answer to The Question, let me ask you another. What have you done with your question. Where have you taken it? You see, a man’s core question does not go away. He may try for years to shove it out of his awareness, and just “get on with life.” But it does not go away. It is a hunger so essential to our souls that it will compel us to find resolution. In truth, it drives everything we do.
I spent a few days this fall with a man I’ll call Peter. He was hosting me for a conference on the east coast, and when Peter picked me up at the airport he was driving a new Land Rover with all the bells and whistles. Nice car, I thought. this guy is doing well. The next day we drove around in his BMW 850CSi. Peter lived in the largest house in town, and had a vacation home in Portugal. None of his wealth was inherited; he worked for every dime. He loved Formula One racing, and fly fishing for salmon in Nova Scotia. I genuinely liked him. Now here’s a man, I said to myself. And yet, there was something missing. You’d think a guy like this would be confident, self-assured, centered. And, of course, he seemed like that at first. But as we spent time together I found him to be . . . . hesitant. He had all the appearances of masculinity, but none of it felt like it was coming from a true center.
After several hours of conversation, he admitted he was coming to a revelation. “I lost my father earlier this year to cancer. But I did not cry when he died. You see, we were never really close.” Ah yes, I knew what was coming next. “All these years knocking myself out to get ahead . . . I wasn’t even enjoying myself. What was it for? I see now . . . I was trying to win my father’s approval.” A long, sad silence. Then Peter said quietly, through tears, “It never worked.” Of course not, it never does. No matter how much you make, no matter how far you go in life, that will never heal your wound or tell you who you are. But, oh how many men buy into this one.
After years of trying to succeed in the world’s eyes, a friend clings stubbornly to that idea. Sitting in my office, bleeding from all his wounds, he says to me, “Who’s the real stud? The guy making money.’ You understand that he’s not making much , so he can still chase the illusion.
Men make their soul’s search for validation in all sorts of directions. Brad is a good man who for so many years now has been searching for a sense of significance through belonging. As he said, “Out of my wounds I figured out how to get life: I’ll find a group to belong to, do something incredible that others will want and I’ll be somebody.” First it was the right gang of kids in school; then it was the wrestling team, years later it was the right ministry team. It has been a desperate search, by his own admission. And it hasn’t gone well. When things didn’t work out earlier at the ministry he was serving, he knew he had to leave. “My heart has burst and all the wounds and arrows have come pouring out. I have never felt such pain. The sentences scream at me, ‘I do not belong I am wanted by no one, I am alone.”
Where does a man go for a sense of validation? To what he owns. To who pays attention to him? How attractive his wife is? Where he gets to eat out? How well he plays sports? The world cheers the vain search on: make a million, run for office, get a promotion, hit a home run . . . be somebody. Can you feel the mockery at all? The wounded crawl up the beach while the snipers fire away. But the deadliest place a man ever takes his search, the place every man seems to wind up no matter what trail he’s followed, is the woman.~~~ John Eldredge, Wild at Heart (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 2001). p.88-90. . .).
