When you begin to study the lives' of the most prolific men in the Bible you begin to see a pattern - many of the greatest men in the Scriptures spent time in the wild. When it was time for Abraham to start the pilgrimage to become the father of a great nation, God asked him to leave behind all the comforts of home and embark on a journey that led to many wilderness encounters with God. When God decided it was time for the Supplanter to grow up and become a real man - one that Prevails with God - God met Jacob in a wrestling match in the middle of the wilderness. When a disheartened and scared prophet needed physical and spiritual rejuvenation, God fed, strengthened, and spoke to Elijah in the wilderness. When it was time for God to start the New Testament revolution He started it with a wild man in the wilderness and people flocked to hear John's message of baptism and repentance. The Bible goes on and on. One story after another gives credance to the idea that great and revolutionary exploits are often birthed through a wilderness experience.

I don't find it coincidental that it was men that God kept dragging out into the wilderness. Why? Because Genesis 2:15 succinctly states that "the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." Simply put, man was created outside of the garden, in a wild, untamed place. When we come into the wilderness we come back to the place of our origins; we come home. I, for one, tend to think that men need the wild, need adventure, and need to go through a proving ground that will tell them that they have what it takes. John Eldredge, the author of "Wild at Heart" paints it this way:

"Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man. The masculine heart needs a place where nothing is prefabricated, modular, nonfat, zip lock, franchised, on-line, microwaveable. Where there are no deadlines, cell phones, or committee meetings. Where there is room for the soul. Where, finally, the geography around us corresponds to the geography of our heart."

And so, by watching and interacting with others as well as looking deeply into my own soul, I've concluded that what men need is an experience, for it's through experiences that men learn best. That's what Man Up Adventures is all about - providing a place for man, God, and the wilderness to all come together, go on an adventure, and walk away forever changed.