Top 116 Quotes & Sayings by John Eldredge - Page 2

If we can reawaken that fierce quality in a man, hook it up to a higher purpose, release the warrior within, then the boy can grow up and become truly masculine.

If a man is ever to find out who he is and what he is here for, he has got to take that journey for himself. He has got to get his heart back.

A man's calling is written on his true heart, and he discovers it when he enters the frontier of his deep desires.

Don't climb on that, don't break anything, don't be so aggressive, don't be so noisy, don't be so messy, don't make such crazy risks. But God's design - which He placed in boys as the picture of Himself - is a resounding yes. Be fierce, be wild, be passionate.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how well we have performed or what we have accomplished—a life without heart is not worth living.

Henri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything you know is wrong. Follow this and you'll be fine.

Eve is a life giver; she is Adam's ally. It is to both of them that the charter for adventure is given. It will take both of them to sustain life. And they will both need to fight together.

Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father.

The meaning of our lives is revealed through experiences that at first seem at odds with each other--moments we wish would never end and moments we wish had never begun.

We are not inviting—we are guarded. Most of our energy is spent trying to hide our true selves, and control our worlds to have some sense of security.

Story is the language of the heart.

God endowed you with a glory when he created you, a glory so deep and mythic that all creation pales in comparison.

My heart matters to God. My heart has always mattered to him.

So long as man remains no real threat to the Enemy, Satan's line to him is 'You're fine'. But after you do take sides, it becomes 'Your heart is bad and you know it'.

You probably can't imagine there being a glory in your life, let alone one that the Enemy fears. But remember - things are not what they seem. We are not what we seem. You probably believed that your heart was bad too. I pray that fog of poison gas from the pit of hell is fading away in the wind of God's truth. And there is more. Not only does Christ say to you that your heart is good, he invites you now out of the shadows to unveil your glory. You have a role you never dreamed of having.

The real you is on the side of God against the false self

We are created for adventure, and if we cannot find one, we start blowing things out of proportion so it feels like we have one.

Caring for your heart is also how you protect your relationship with God... [The heart] is where we commune with him. It is where we hear his voice. Most of the folks I know who have never heard God speak to them are the same folks who live far from their hearts.

You can't fight a battle you don't think exists.

But a wound unfelt is a wound unhealed.

We think you'll find that every woman in her heart of hearts longs for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. That's what makes a woman come alive.

I wasn't mean; I wasn't evil. I was nice. And let me tell you, a hesitant man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and a warrior, not a Really Nice Guy.

Have you thought about His (God) handling of the gospel? God needs to get a message out to the human race, without which they will perish...foreve r. What's the plan? First, He starts with the most unlikely group ever: a couple of prostitutes, a few fishermen with no better than a second-grade education, a tax collector. Then, he passes the ball to us. Unbelievable.

The point is the love story. We live in a love story in the midst of war.

Only by walking with God can we hope to find the path that leads to life. That is what it means to be a disciple. After all -- aren't we 'followers of Christ'? Then by all means, let's actually follow him. Not ideas about him. Not just his principles. Him.

A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness.

It is the thoughts and intents of the heart that shape a person's life.

There is something else I am after, out here in the wild. I am searching for an even more elusive prey . . . something that can only be found through the help of wilderness. I am looking for my heart.

You live in a world at war. Spiritual attack must be a category you think in or you will misunderstand more than half of what happens in your marriage.

You would not ask someone with a broken arm to swim the English Channel, so you cannot demand that the broken to live as if they were whole.

Every man is a warrior inside. But the choice to fight is his own.

He is the playfulness of creation, scandal and utter goodness, the generosity of the ocean and the ferocity of a thunderstorm; he is cunning as a snake and gentle as a whisper; the gladness of sunshine and the humility of a thirty-mile walk by foot on a dirt road.

A man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life that involves and yet transcends even home and family.

Desire reveals design, and design reveals destiny.

We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie.

Worship is the act of the abandoned heart adoring its God

For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion . . . and a man no longer believes he is a man.

Moses does not encounter the living God at the mall. He finds Him (or is found by Him) somewhere out in the deserts of Sinai, a long way from the comforts of Egypt... Where did the great prophet Elijah go to recover his strength? To the wild. As did John the Baptist, and his cousin, Jesus, Who is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

Desire, both the whispers and the shouts, is the map we have been given to find the only life worth living.

She is the crescendo, the final, astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish with Eve. She is the Master's finishing touch.

We don't see clearly because we don't see with the eyes of our heart.

Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out towar its fulfilment, and carry us along with it.

Am I really a man? Have I got what it takeswhen it counts?

Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a facade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise.

They ignore what is deep and true to a man's heart, his real passions, and simply try to shape him up through various forms of pressure.

Of course, none of this can happen for us until we give our lives back to God. We cannot know the joy or the life or the freedom of heart I've described until we surrender our lives to Jesus and surrender them totally... We turn, and give ourselves body, soul, and spirit back to God, asking him to cleanse our hearts and make them new. And he does. He gives us a new heart. And he comes to dwell there, in our hearts.

Instead of asking, 'What should a woman do—what is her role?' it would be far more helpful to ask, 'What is a woman—what is her design?' and, 'Why did God place Woman in our midst?

Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.

Mary had Joseph. Esther had Mordecai. Ruth had Boaz. We will not become the women God intends us to be without the guidance, counsel, wisdom, strength, and love of good men in our lives.

Eternal life is not primarily duration but quality of life, "life to the limit.

How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. (What’s Wrong with the World)

Every man carries a wound. I have never met a man without one. No matter how good your life may have seemed to you, you live in a broken world full of broken people.

Aggression is part of the masculine design, we are hardwired for it.... Little girls do not invent games where large numbers of people die, where bloodshed is a prerequisite for having fun. Hockey, for example, was not a feminine creation. Nor was boxing. A boy wants to attack something - and so does a man, even if it's only a little white ball on a tee.

The culture of women in the church today is crippled by some very pervasive lies. "To be spiritual is to be busy. To be spiritual is to be disciplined. To be spiritual is to be dutiful." No, to be spiritual is to be in Romance with God. The desire to be romanced lies deep in the heart of every women. It is for such that you were made. Are you ARE romanced, and ever will be.

A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

When winter fails to provide an adequate snow base, my boys bring their sleds in the house and ride them down the stairs. Just the other day, my wife found them with a rope out their second-story bedroom window, preparing to rappel down the side of the house. The recipe for fun is pretty simple raising boys: Add to any activity an element of danger, stir in a little exploration, add a dash of destruction, and you've got yourself a winner.