I was on my way to eat lunch at Panera Bread, a laptop-friendly establishment with a gender-neutral menu.

But I'd been reading John Eldredge's "Wild At Heart: discovering the secret of a man's soul." I stopped instead at Logan's Roadhouse, where the country music blares and the peanut shells hit the floor.

As I walked toward the doors, a couple emerged from the restaurant. The man playfully hoisted the woman over his shoulder and carried her to his pickup.

I was at the right place.

Eldredge is a Christian author and founder of Ransomed Heart Ministries in Colorado Springs, Colo. His book was handed out to all the men at my church on Sunday.

In the book, Eldredge says most Christian men are bored and need to resurrect the adventurous soul inside them.

He reminds us that Eve was created "within the lush beauty of Eden's garden," but Adam was created in the Wilderness outside.

"Only afterward is (Adam) brought to Eden," Eldredge says. "And ever since then, boys have never been at home indoors, and men have had an insatiable longing to explore."

The inescapable truth, according to Eldredge and plenty of supporting scripture, is that there's something wild in the heart of every man.

That distinctly male wildness is what makes men attractive — at least initially — to women. The trouble is that society and modern Christianity have pressured us to be "nice guys," Eldredge says, and most of us have lost touch with our innately good wildness.

The author makes a great point. A camping trip in the Florida Keys is where the fire that united my wife and me was sparked. Sharon later told me it was my rugged endurance that first stirred her passion.

That's not exactly how she put it. "You didn't whine about the mosquitoes," is what she said.

I had done my whining just before the trip, when everyone in our group of nine was not prepared to depart at the appointed hour.

Sharon stirred my passion — startled it, really — when she responded to my complaints with: "Stop being such a woman."

Since that trip, I've camped on a barren beach on Mexico's Baja California peninsula, slept in the northern California wilderness, rafted raging rivers and hiked through mountainous bear habitats. And Sharon, in all her feminine beauty, was with me.

Eldredge insists his book is not "some sort of macho-man pep rally," and he does give a nod to an element of wildness in the hearts of women. Indeed, we men should be comfortable enough in our masculinity to recognize that we do not have the market cornered on being wild at heart.

Since the first of our three daughters was born nearly seven years ago, Sharon and I have not camped on any untamed beaches. But the Baja trip still ranks as the best vacation ever. Why shouldn't our children have that experience, too?

That's what I get from Eldredge's book. My wife and I have spent too much time making our home comfortable. We need to get both our wild hearts back to some primitive camping, and take the girls along this time.

Eventually, my daughters will know all about the Baja trip.

And later, while we're having lunch at Panera Bread, I don't want them asking why their mother and I have been such women all their lives.

Mark Rutledge can be contacted at mrutledge@coxnc.com.