The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God [Hardcover]

Mark Buchanan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2003

Our perception of God makes a difference in every crevice of our character, from our inner anxieties to our public conversations. It determines whether we're trusting or suspicious, whether we're happy or discontent - and whether or not we can rely on God matters mightily on the day of our death. Mark Buchanan's third book continues his penetrating exploration of the God we worship. Bravely and honestly, he poses the direst question of human existence: Can God be trusted?

It's life drunk deeply, lived to the hilt—where we walk with the God who is surprising, dangerous, and mysterious. It's the terrain where God doesn't make sense out of our disasters and our boredom, but keeps meeting us in the thick of them.

But unless we trust in His character, we'll never venture in. We will sit at the stream all day, dying of thirst, but not daring to drink. To follow God is to drink and drink from the stream, even if it means—especially if it means—getting swallowed up.

Let Mark Buchanan show you the entrance to the Holy Wild, where you can live face-to-face with the beautiful, dangerous God of creation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Can God be trusted? Canadian pastor and author Buchanan (Things Unseen; Your God Is Too Safe) argues yes in this hard-hitting evangelical book, which brandishes vivid imagery and biblical truth. Writing in colorful, expressive terms, Buchanan engages readers' hearts and attention as he challenges them to trust in three divine attributes: God's benevolent nature, his saving nature and his majestic nature. Opening with a discussion of soul weariness, which most Christians experience at various times, Buchanan emphasizes the importance of trusting in a faithful God. A common obstacle to this trust is that Christians desire a God of love, but want to forget his equally essential quality as a God of wrath. Does anyone really want a God who is devoid of anger, asks Buchanan-especially when that anger is a purifying fire that responds to godlessness and wickedness? Interestingly, Buchanan notes that God's wrath is played out most fully not when he delivers retribution but when he leaves his children to their own way-alone for all eternity. The author's passion convinces readers to dare enough to embrace the gift of rest from God. Though the reading generally moves along at a fast clip, the book's second section focuses on the foundations of salvation in lackluster fashion. The final sections, however, pick up momentum to finish in fine style.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A superb devotional...some of the finest inspirational writing to appear in a long time." -- Christian Retailing, October 6th, 2003

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Multnomah Books; First Printing edition (October 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590522494
• ISBN-13: 978-1590522493
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,113,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I began my career as a writer at age 12 - the year a remarkably creative grade 5 teacher awakened in me the possibilities of language and story. I eventually took a degree in writing, but that was simply to refine and hone what I felt compelled to do anyways, whether well or poorly, paid or unpaid, appluaded or scorned.

I ended up, enroute to being a published author, a pastor. My seven books (the 7th is due out February 2012) have so far all come out of that world - though watch in early 2013 for a novel. (For the record, I'm not the Mark Buchanan who writes science books).

I enjoy hearing from readers, even when they take issue with something I've written. It lets me know that, at least, the line hasn't gone dead at that end.

Thanks for being one of those readers, even if only in this instance.

Mark Buchanan

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshing Surprise of a Book., November 18, 2004

By 

Jacob Hantla "hantla.com" (Chandler, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God (Hardcover)

When Multnomah sent me The Holy Wild by Mark Buchanan, I tossed it into my ever-growing "to-read" stack thinking that I might get to it some year. But for some reason, I think because I had no clue what a book entitled "The Holy Wild" would be about, I picked it up and started browsing. When I got to chapter 3 in my skimming I read,

A leaf. Behold a single leaf. So fragile, it tears like paper, crushes in your hand to a moist stain, sharply fragrant. Dry, it burns swift and crackling as newsprint, pungent as gunpowder. Yet a leaf may withstand hurricanes, stubbornly clinging to its limb.

Hold it open in your palm. It is perfect as a newborn's smile. Pinch its stem between thumb and forefinger and hold it to the light. Eden bleeds through. Its veins are like bone work in silhouette. This single leaf, joined to the tree, drinks poison from the air, drinks it serenely as Socrates downing his cup of hemlock, and refuses to return in kind, instead spilling out life-giving oxygen. This leaf tilts to catch the sun, its warmth and radiance, to distill the heat and light down to the shadows, down to the roots, back up to limbs. To shade the earth. To feed you and me.

A leaf. God makes these season after season, one after the other, billions upon billions, from the Garden to the New Jerusalem, most for no eye but His own. He does it faithfully, or else I would not live to tell about it, or you to hear.

Perhaps of all my many sins against heaven, this ranks with the worst: Until this moment, I have never thanked God for a single leaf.

Which is the problem with faithfulness: We hardly notice it. Faithfulness is, by definition, the predictable, the habitual, the sturdy, the routine. It is the evidence of things seen, but seen so often we've grown blind to them. It is the substance of things expected, expected so unthinkingly that we now take them for granted.

It is the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the skin we inhabit, the way our insides tick and pulse and spin on their own, in season and out, whether we sleep or work or play, without asking us or us having to ask. It is these myriad amazing things: toes and eyes, leaf veins and cloudbursts, bedrock and ozone, seed and sap that by their very constancy and durability have worn familiar or become invisible. The sheer steadfastness of things that surround and uphold us are dull with the caking of the ordinary. We live amidst the surpassing wonders, but most of it has become run-of-the-mill. We dwell among endless miracles that, repeated day after day, have grown tedious. We are lavished with gifts that we now expect or ignore or begrudge.

Faithfulness bores us.
Who among us leapt up this morning as the sun rose, exclaiming, "Look! Look, everybody, look! The sun! Here it comes! Hallelujah, it's here again!"? Or who ran through the house shouting, "Ha ha! Air! Behold! Air! Clean air, fresh air, air to fill my lungs, air to shape my words, air to move the clouds, air to lift the birds"?

Not me. I woke up groaning.

This chapter stopped me in my tracks and pointed me to my faithful, just, loving, gracious, fear- and honor-evoking God. As I continued to read, many other chapters did the same. Mark Buchanan is obviously an extremely talented writer. Each sentence has been meticulously crafted; his imagery is so vivid that the images, the sounds, the smells, and the emotions that are in his mind when he writes are almost certainly recreated perfectly in the mind of the reader. But this is not reason enough for me to recommend a book. The object of such picturesque and thought-provoking language is God, who give Mark an endless canvas of beauty, wonder, and intrigue from which to draw in his artistic writing.

I normally do not read books like this. I can't even define what "like this" is. But suffice it to say that I would be more likely to pick up a book by Spurgeon, Piper, Mahaney, or Martin Luther than Mark Buchanan or Max Lucado ("fluffy writers"). But this has been to my detriment. Although, I cannot give this book at 5 star rating because I think that many thoughts are left unfinished and some exegesis incomplete and possibly misleading (Good Samaritan text in particular), I can say that the writing has left me wanting more.

Small bits and pieces of God and his character were exposed. God is magnified and glorified by being shown to be who He is, a God who causes us to fear and tremble at the mere mention of His Name, and the God to whom we can run and give all of our cares, concerns, and hopes. Mark helps us discover more and more what he discovered and describes in the last chapter,

"I have discovered, as I hoped and feared in my younger days, that God is no drab pedant, meddling and puttering, but the Lion of Judah, the Lord of the Holy Wild. The God, who when He speaks or shows Himself, stirs in me two impulses at onece: to run FROM Him and to run TO Him."
-Jacob Hantla

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Holy Wild is a fabulous book!, October 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God (Hardcover)

Mark Buchanan's third book is, in my estimation the best yet. Tapping into a similar theme from his first book, Your God is Too Safe, Mark discusses the real character of God - the dangerous, even perilous, but good God. Moving the reader away from the notion of a God who resembles a nit-picky, small-minded bean-counter or a permissive, sleepy grandfather who keeps his distance, Buchanan reveals a God that is both dangerous and GOOD!

How we see the world around us is largely shaped by how we view God. In an unexpected way, this book can literally alter how you view the world and the God who runs it!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sparkles and Pierces, June 5, 2004

By 

Eric Wilson "novelist" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Holy Wild: Trusting in the Character of God (Hardcover)

Mark Buchanan is a rare combination. Certain authors are weak in the writing department, yet they do a wonderful job of telling stories and communicating truth. Others are masters in the art of literature, but they fail to touch us on a heart level. Buchanan mixes sparkling words with piercing insight, and delivers a book that should be read by all.

"The Holy Wild" is a book for anyone who has struggled with the questions of life. It doesn't turn its eyes from the ugliness of disease or disaster; it doesn't candy-coat the realities of abuse and addiction. It does, however, nudge us into the presence of the living God, reminding us to view life through his majesty, his justice, and his grace.

With the theological depth of CS Lewis and the storytelling ease of John Eldredge, Mark Buchanan is a voice that demands to be heard.