Top 100 John Eldredge Quotes
#1. 'Wild at Heart' created a set of expectations maybe, partly, on my part, certainly on my publisher's part, but also in the world out there, that my next books would be as remarkable.
John Eldredge
#2. So if you are writing a story where love is the meaning, where love is the highest and best of all, where love is the point, then you have to allow each person a choice.
John Eldredge
#3. We would like to picture goodness as being synonymous with safety.
John Eldredge
#4. Corporate policies and procedures are designed with one aim: to harness a man to the plow and make him produce. But the soul refuses to be harnessed; it knows nothing of Day Timers and deadlines and P&L statements. The soul longs for passion, for freedom, for life.
John Eldredge
#5. 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.
John Eldredge
#6. 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.
John Eldredge
#8. I have a call to speak, to write, to do sort of deep-heart surgery in people's lives.
John Eldredge
#9. Every song you love, every memory you cherish, every moment that has moved you to holy tears has been given to you from the One who has been pursuing you from your first breath in order to win your heart.
John Eldredge
#10. 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.
John Eldredge
#11. He is on a mission to rescue a people who are so utterly deceived most of them don't even want to be rescued.
John Eldredge
#12. 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.
John Eldredge
#13. Part of me knows that prayer is essential; another part of me would rather turn on the TV and check out. And that whole bit about being long-suffering-no way. Part of me wants to just get drunk.
John Eldredge
#14. God lures us into marriage through love and sex and loneliness, or simply the fact that someone finally paid attention - all those reasons that you got married in the first place. It doesn't really matter, he'll do whatever it takes. He lures us into marriage and then he uses it to transform us.
John Eldredge
#15. The most dangerous man on earth is the man who has reckoned with his own death. All men die; few men ever really live.
John Eldredge
#16. We have a Father, and He cares about our internal world - issues of motive, issues of fear, issues of validation.
John Eldredge
#17. 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.
John Eldredge
#18. 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.
John Eldredge
#19. Just like sunshine affects others, when the life of Jesus invades your life, you become a loving person. The effect on others is amazing.
John Eldredge
#20. A boy wants to attack something - and so does a man, even if it's only a little white ball on a tee. He wants to whack it into kingdom come.
John Eldredge
#21. 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.
John Eldredge
#22. The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.
John Eldredge
#23. You know the phrase 'Jesus laughed' isn't ever used in the Gospels. So, most people walk away with the idea that Jesus is a pretty serious guy, pretty sour faced most of the time, pretty upset at what's going on around Him.
John Eldredge
#24. The true test of a man, the beginning of his redemption, actually starts when he can no longer rely on what he's used all his life. The real journey begins when the false self fails.
John Eldredge
#25. The personality of the artist leaks through their work. God included. He reveals himself through nature, as the Scriptures testify.
John Eldredge
#26. If only Jesus' followers shared his personality. That one shift alone would correct so many of the ridiculous and horrifying things that pass for popular Christianity.
John Eldredge
#27. Every story has a villain. Every story also has a hero. The Great Love Story the Scriptures are telling us about also reveals a Lover who longs for you. The story of your life is also the story of the long and passionate pursuit of your heart by the One who knows you best and loves you most.
John Eldredge
#28. I'm married. I have three children. I have a mortgage to pay. The plumbing breaks and the yard needs trimming. However, what my wife and children need most from me is my passion for them.
John Eldredge
#29. There is a life you can love, but it takes courage, perseverance, and a little cunning to get there. It takes a warrior.
John Eldredge
#30. We don't see clearly because we don't see with the eyes of our heart.
John Eldredge
#31. Of course our prayers are limited by our sin. If you want powerful prayers, get the sin out of your life.
John Eldredge
#32. 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.
John Eldredge
#33. No wonder when he steps into the heavens to accept the throne the cry goes up, "Worthy! Worthy! Worthy! Make him king!" This man is so worthy.
John Eldredge
#34. 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.
John Eldredge
#35. The balancing act we parents attempt is convincing our children: 1. You are loved more than you can imagine. 2. The world does not revolve around you.
John Eldredge
#36. Most Christians have lost the life of their heart and with it, their romance with God.
John Eldredge
#37. Genuine holiness restores human beings; restored human beings possess genuine holiness.
John Eldredge
#38. One of the deepest of all human longings is the longing to belong, to be a part of things, to be invited in. We want to be part of the fellowship. Where did that come from?
John Eldredge
#39. Marriage is the sanctuary of the heart. You have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life's great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest.
John Eldredge
#40. Validation comes to us in two ways: through trials we overcome, and through the words of older men.
John Eldredge
#41. Whatever isn't born out of deep confidence in God is sin. That includes our personality and our approach to life.
John Eldredge
#42. We're told that you can have a relationship with Jesus, but most Christians don't experience Jesus personally like that. They just don't. We honor Him. We respect Him. We worship Him. We don't experience Him and His personality like we do the people we love the most in our lives.
John Eldredge
#43. Most of our addictions [shopping, food, bad relationships] as women flare up when we feel that we are not loved or sought after.
John Eldredge
#44. It is the thoughts and intents of the heart that shape a person's life.
John Eldredge
#45. The hardest, gladdest thing in the world is to cry Father! from a full heart . . . the refusal to look up to God as our father is the one central wrong in the whole human affair; the inability, the one central misery.
John Eldredge
#46. I wasn't looking for religion; I was looking for a world view.
John Eldredge
#47. Thus we might not know we have a sage at the table, for he will remain silent while the "experts" prattle on and on.
John Eldredge
#48. A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal.
John Eldredge
#49. Life needs a man to be fierce - and fiercely devoted. The wounds he will take throughout his life will cause him to lose heart if all he has been trained to be is soft.
John Eldredge
#50. 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.
John Eldredge
#51. 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.
John Eldredge
#52. The Big Lie in the church today is that you are nothing more than a sinner saved by grace.
John Eldredge
#53. Samson becomes a great and terrible warrior when, and only when, the Spirit of God comes upon him. The rest of the time he's just short of an idiot. What does this story tell us about the God whose Spirit this is?
John Eldredge
#54. 'Wild at Heart' simply came out of my journey as a man and then my work with men.
John Eldredge
#55. Who am I really? The answer to that question is found in the answer to another. What is God's heart toward me, or, how do I affect him? If God is the Pursuer, the Ageless Romancer, the Lover, then there has to be a Beloved, one who is the Pursued. This is our role in the story.
John Eldredge
#56. There are a lot of good men out there who just need a little direction and leadership in order for them to offer what they have to young men and boys.
John Eldredge
#57. So you can't demand the broken to live as if they were whole. Discipline is not the issue; apply discipline and you'll make it worse. What is needed is healing.
John Eldredge
#58. Most people don't even try to learn the ways of the kingdom; they just go about their days with a practical agnosticism, hoping things work out, tossing up prayers like they hope to score on a Jesus lottery ticket.
John Eldredge
#59. What strikes me about Jesus is that he is a remarkably true person; he never changes his personality to fit in with whatever crowd he finds himself. He is simply himself, and he never plays to his audience.
John Eldredge
#60. Don't picture yourselves as architects coming in with a complete blueprint, but rather as adventurers, trying to decipher a treasure map together.
John Eldredge
#61. Most men think they are simply here on earth to kill time - and it's killing them.
John Eldredge
#62. It was men who stopped slavery. It was men who ran up the stairs in the Twin Towers to rescue people. It was men who gave up their seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic. Men are made to take risks and live passionately on behalf of others.
John Eldredge
#63. 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.
John Eldredge
#64. How wonderful to discover that God has never been alone. He has always been Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has always been a fellowship. This whole Story began with something relational.
John Eldredge
#65. Secret of the warrior-heart of Jesus. Second, a warrior is cunning. He knows when to fight and when to run; he can sense a trap and never charges blindly ahead;
John Eldredge
#66. The more that you come to know Jesus for who He really is, loving Him is not a problem.
John Eldredge
#67. When a woman forsakes her vulnerability because she's been hurt or because she lives in a dangerous world or doesn't want to be used, she loses something essential about being a woman.
John Eldredge
#69. We forgive those who harmed us. And then, with an open heart, we simply as Jesus to heal us.
John Eldredge
#71. You can't fight a battle you don't think exists.
John Eldredge
#72. You're going to be okay. You're going to find your way. You are not alone.
John Eldredge
#73. The true story of every person in this world is not the story you see, the external story. The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart.
John Eldredge
#74. We don't need accountability groups; we need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside, someone to watch our back.
John Eldredge
#75. When we are in the darkness, we begin to feel like we have always been there. But it is not true. David reminds himself that God has been faithful in the past; God will be faithful again. He urges himself to put his hope in God because the morning will come.
John Eldredge
#76. 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.
John Eldredge
#77. Wouldn't it help you to realize that you really do live in an epic if your life had a soundtrack?
John Eldredge
#78. 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.
John Eldredge
#79. You will find it hard to hear from God until you let go your rights and your agenda.
John Eldredge
#80. 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.
John Eldredge
#81. spirit - we know there is something special, even sacramental about sex. It
John Eldredge
#82. It was only after 20 years of being dunked in the religious culture that I got caught up in 'religion.' I had no exposure to Christianity as a child. I was not raised in a Christian home. I became spiritually hungry in high school.
John Eldredge
#84. The key to receiving answers to prayers for guidance is to let go of our constant attempt to "figure things out." Really,
John Eldredge
#85. Reading the Gospels, without the personality of Jesus, is like watching television with the sound turned off.
John Eldredge
#86. Shouting is obvious; not talking to each other slips by.
John Eldredge
#87. In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.
John Eldredge
#88. All the stories we've been telling about the presence of an evil power in the world, all the dark characters that have sent chills down our spines and given us restless nights - they are spoken to us as warnings.
There is evil cast around us ... there is an evil force in this world.
John Eldredge
#89. For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart.
John Eldredge
#90. I don't write anything that I haven't lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not.
John Eldredge
#91. Desire, both the whispers and the shouts, is the map we have been given to find the only life worth living.
John Eldredge
#92. My heart matters to God. My heart has always mattered to him ...
John Eldredge
#93. Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose. We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure.
John Eldredge
#94. Desire reveals design, and design reveals destiny.
John Eldredge
#95. All of the happiness we have ever known and all of the happiness we hope to find is unreachable without a heart.
John Eldredge
#96. There is something about human nature that just doesn't want to face the reality that we live in two worlds. We live in the physical, material world where we have jobs, read books, and go about our business. And we live in a spiritual world - and that is a world at war.
John Eldredge
#97. 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.
John Eldredge
#98. Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out towar its fulfilment, and carry us along with it.
John Eldredge
#99. Fuzzy and unspecific prayers see fuzzy and unspecific results. God
John Eldredge
#100. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. (HEBREWS 4:15)
John Eldredge
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