Wild at Heart - Review

I just finished reading Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul by John Eldredge.  This an old best seller from 2001, but I can totally understand why it has sold some 2,000,000 copies.  John Eldredge also wrote another of my favorite books (with Brent Curtis): The Sacred Romance (also a minor modern classic).
Wild at Heart is about the loss of the man's heart and how to regain it.  The first premise of the book is that men (at least in modern Western culture) have forgotten how to be men.  We have exchanged the essentials of manhood (battle, adventure, and rescuing beauty) for reliability, safety, and good manners.  In the process, we have buried our hearts deep within us, and we have come to doubt our own manhood.
I deeply resonated with Eldredge and his analysis of manhood.  In fact, I've been ready a minor flurry of articles about the loss and struggles of manhood.  It seems that he has really hit on a key struggle of our culture. 
The middle portion of the book is about identifying and healing the deep wound in every man's heart.  We all have received deep wounds that strike us at our core, where our identity and self-worth originate.  Somewhere along the way (early or late or both), we have all received crippling arrows that tell us that we are not good enough and don't have what it takes to be a real man.  This may sound like pop psychology, but it is actually very deep and real.  The path to healing is opening our hearts to hear the voice of God counteracting those false messages deep within our hearts.  Eldredge has explained this with beautiful poignancy. 
In a difficult time in my life, God has used this book to encourage me to bring my full strength to bear in all my relationships and tasks.  The best thing I can do in this world is to be fully myself through the fueling power of the Spirit.
I highly recommend this book.  The Josh rating: JJJJJ.