My two oldest boys were excited when “Bear” season opened recently.

 

Along with their dad, Alex and Andrew are big fans of Man vs. Wild—the Discovery Channel television series featuring Edward “Bear” Grylls, which premiered its fourth season earlier this month.

 

In Man vs. Wild, Bear, with his cool accent and engaging personality, demonstrates all manner of survival techniques when faced with nature’s extremes—from crossing piranha-infested rivers and using his own urine to cool himself down to fighting off grizzly bears. Touted as the ultimate modern-day adventurer, Bear served on the Special Forces in the U.K. and was the youngest British climber to summit Mount Everest at age 23.

 

Man vs. Wild is just what the doctor ordered for men encouraged by John Eldredge to embrace their adventurous spirits in his best-selling Wild at Heart. My boys and I like to live vicariously through Bear, who shows viewers how to survive with little more than the clothes on his back after being dropped into some of the most inhospitable places on earth, including the Everglades, Sahara Desert and Patagonia.

 

“I like the show because Bear gets to ‘versus the wild,’” Alex, 6, plainly noted. Andrew, 5, succinctly added: “My favorite part is when Bear eats the yucky stuff like snakes and bugs.”

 

For the new season’s first two episodes—set in Zambia and Namibia in Africa—Bear didn’t disappoint my youngsters as he dined on rhino beetle larva, antelope carcass, catfish, a giant bullfrog, worms, mussels, a snake and another beetle.

 

Along the way, Bear battled a large puff adder, rode some of the biggest rapids in the world, suffered diarrhea while hanging off a sheer rock face, made a canoe out of a dead zebra and helped catch a giant porcupine from a pit. It was enough to give armchair adventurers and extreme sports buffs an adrenaline rush.

 

Although Bear’s adventures are believable, Man vs. Wild took a public relations hit last year after allegations surfaced that the host was staying in hotels when he was supposedly braving every kind of hard ecosystem—mountain, subzero terrain, jungle, desert and the sea. Discovery has since posted disclaimers during the show that in some episodes, the crew and Bear receive some survival assistance while in the wild for health and safety concerns.

 

In a way it’s good to know that Bear is not some indestructible survival expert, but he needs help sometimes.Although the setting for Man vs. Wild is God’s great outdoors, the series, for the most part, does not touch on Bear’s Christian faith.

 

But on his Web site, Bear, 34, said his faith “feels like the rock in my life and it has taken me a long time to no longer be afraid to say that.”

 

Faith gives me a strong backbone,” added Bear, author of Man vs. Wild: Survival Techniques from the Most Dangerous Places on Earth.

It might be a stretch to say that your faith will be stirred by watching Man vs. Wild, but thanks to one of Bear’s favorite verses, the series offers a subtle reminder for Christians: “The Lord Himself watches over you.”