"A Walk on the Wild Side with John Eldredge," from Christian Book Reader

From Christian Book Reader magazine, March/April 2008...

A Walk on the Wild Side with John Eldredge
The Wild at Heart author gets personal about his walk with God

To many Christian men today, John Eldredge is a modern-day Joshua: a godly man with a warrior’s heart who inspires them to action. Ever since his 2001 book Wild at Heart, Eldredge’s writing has resounded with the hearts of men around the world by making it OK for them to be a Christian and still be a “guy.”
In a time of increasing gender confusion, Eldredge’s books proclaim that masculinity is not only acceptable but essential. God places in the heart of young boys the desire to become heroes and live life as an adventure, he said, encouraging them to continue that dream as men.
Since its release, Wild at Heart has had a huge effect on the American church, selling 2.9 million copies and inspiring men’s groups forming to study the book in congregations across the country.
Eldredge’s subsequent books, including Epic and Waking the Dead, deal with similar topics and have sold very well, making him one of the top Christian authors of today. In 2005, he co-wrote the book Captivating with his wife, Stasi, as the female counterpart to Wild at Heart, looking at the deepest desires of women. It has sold 1.5 million copies.
The Eldredges both work with John’s ministry, Ransomed Heart, and live in Colorado with their three sons, Sam, 18, Blaine, 16, and Luke, 14.
Eldredge recently talked to Christian Book Reader about his ministry and his latest book, Walking With God, which releases in April.

How did Walking With God come about?
John Eldredge: Well, I found myself enjoying the incredible gift of learning to hear God’s voice. At the same time, I’d share these stories with my friends about how God was speaking to me, and they’d sort of look on with a sadness that made me realize a lot of really good people haven’t been taught how to walk with God in an intimate, daily, real way—in a way that lets us hear Him speaking to us.

So what I decided to do was open up my journals from an entire year, tell a bunch of stories of what it looks like (to walk with God on a daily basis), and in those stories teach folks how to hear God’s voice and follow Him.

Was it hard to write from such a personal perspective?
Yeah, in a way. It’s pretty vulnerable, opening your life up for other people to look in on. But I think the best way to learn is by listening to someone else’s story.

When Stasi and I were first married, we used to love to hang out with couples who had been married for 20 years or more. We learned so much from hearing their stories, the good and the bad. You probably learn as much from their mistakes as you do their successes.

That’s what I wanted to do with Walking With God, just invite people into what it looks like to walk intimately with God and to find the life He really offers. I figured it was worth the risk.

Does this book give a more detailed look at your views on the spiritual life?
Exactly. It’s probably the most practical book that I’ve written, yet in some ways, if books like Epic and Sacred Romance were sort of the big picture, then this is down in the details. This is in all the ins and outs of life.

It has stories about stuff like having an argument with your kids. What do you do? How do you walk with God in that? What do you do when you’re praying and you don’t hear anything from God? What do you do when you lose the family dog? It’s a book that is down in where we all live life.

How did you come to Christ?
It’s a wild story; I’d better tell the short version. I was not raised in a Christian home. When I became a teenager I tried just about everything that was available to American teenagers in the ’70s—the drug culture and New Age and Eastern mysticism. I was really hungry and searching spiritually.

When I was 19, I came to Christ pretty directly in the sense that I didn’t have anybody share Christ with me. I saw one of my buddies become a Christian, and I was real intrigued by that.
I was also reading a New Age book that had Jesus in it, but they were trying to equate Jesus with all these other religious teachers. You know, He’s just like Buddha, and so on. It was amazing because in that moment something in me said: “No, that’s not true. He’s different. Jesus is different.”

One night in my bedroom I just prayed something like, “Jesus, I really need help, and I think You are the one to help me.” That was my salvation prayer. And it took, because six months later I was a completely different person.

How did you meet your wife?
We actually met in high school. We were both in the same drama class. She was in charge of taking attendance, and I was always cutting class. So, I needed to charm her to get her on my side, and she actually did think I was charming.

We didn’t actually date in high school, though. Part of the sweet story of that is neither of us were Christians in high school. Then at 19, when I became a Christian, I led Stasi to Christ. It was after she accepted Christ that we kind of hit this romantic interest in each other and started dating then.

What was it like to write Captivating with her?
I was a little nervous about how that was going to go. There’s enough to navigate in any marriage without throwing a book in there. But it ended up being an incredible experience. To encourage one another, to share what we were learning and to teach Stasi what I’ve learned about writing was a joy. I hope we get to do it again.

Why do you place so much emphasis on stories?
Story is the language of the heart. If you want to talk to somebody, one of the first things you start telling one another are stories. Facts just don’t do it. “How was your weekend?” “It was fine.” It’s not enough. You want them to tell you a story.

Then you look at the scriptures and you see, well, that’s how God speaks. He gives us a whole book of stories and Jesus teaches in stories. The reason for that is not entertainment. It’s actually the way human beings understand things.

Seriously, isn’t that the most memorable part of the sermon? Wouldn’t you rather go see a movie than read the phone book? It’s all story.

The problem is modern Christianity reads like a tax form. That’s why people are so disconnected from it, because it’s just rules, tips, doctrine and principles, and we’ve lost the whole story of it.

You’ve said before that it’s important to know what stories we like because it tells us a lot about ourselves. What are your favorite stories?
For movies, I love A River Runs Through It. I also love the novel it was taken from. Obviously I love Braveheart—I talked about that a lot in Wild at Heart. I also love World War II movies like Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers.

For books, I like to read a whole variety of things. I love military history. I love reading some of the older Christian saints, back to Thomas à Kempis and St. John of the Cross. C.S. Lewis said reading classics is like “opening ourselves to the clean breezes of the centuries.” I also love Lewis and George McDonald.

Because I love the outdoors, I love outdoor narratives like Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer’s book about climbing Everest.

How have your books been received outside of the U.S.?
Phenomenal, unbelievable, it’s just exploding. It’s the coolest thing to see.

We just got a letter at our ministry from an 80-year-old nun who lives in Poland. Captivating had just come out in Polish, and she was writing to tell us that for the first time in her life she understands the love of God. That’s just incredible. That’s what we’re in this business for, isn’t it?

You know what’s really fun is that they’re using Wild at Heart in the Amazon. I mean, if you think there’s a group of men who kind of get that, who don’t really need it, they would be it. But what’s amazing is the universal nature of the human heart.

All over the world, all across time and history the human heart is the same. The things we long for, the things we fear, the things that wound us, it’s all the same. Which is beautiful because that’s the way God made us.

What does Ransomed Heart Ministries do?
We’re a message ministry. What we do is we hold conferences and retreats here in the U.S. and around the world. We put out a lot of teaching resources.

People who read my books might want more or might want to go deeper on some particular subject, like the masculine heart or prayer, so we have a lot of audio resources. We’re doing what we can to help people go deeper.

How often do you get to go camping?
Not enough. The thing we’re all fighting right now is the crazy pace of life and busyness, and you have to be deliberate about that.

I have three boys, and that’s what gives me the impetus and the encouragement to get out. Just to go out and do special things together. Luke and I went mountain climbing this summer, and Blaine and I went bow hunting for elk this fall.

What’s your favorite place to go?
Oh, the Tetons. We go there every summer as a family. It’s a deep tradition now in the Eldredge household. We go there, we camp for a week or two, we canoe the Snake River, swim in the lakes, do some hiking. It’s incredible