Quotes from John Eldredge

God can handle your anger, disappointment, even bitterness. But walking away from Jesus is forsaking your only hope out of the heartache.

Think of consecration as aligning and enforcing—aligning yourself with Jesus and all the laws of his kingdom, then enforcing his rule and those laws over the matter in question.

You might have heard the old saying "Give someone a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach someone to fish, and you feed him for the rest of his life." The same holds true for life itself. If you give someone an answer, a rule, a principle, you help him solve one problem. But if you teach him to walk with God, well then, you've helped him solve the rest of his life. You've helped him tap into an inexhaustible

We're all living in the shadow of that infamous icon, "The Proverbs 31 Woman," whose life is so busy I wonder, when does she have time for friendships, for taking walks, or reading good books? Her light never goes out at night? When does she have sex? Somehow she has sanctified the shame most women live under, biblical proof that yet again we don't measure up. Is that supposed to be godly—that sense that you are a failure as a woman?

In 'The Allure of Hope,' Jan says, Eve was convinced that God was withholding something from her. Not even the extravagance of Eden could convince her that God's heart is good.

C. S. Lewis writes: "If you consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Your Lord finds your desires not too strong, but too weak.

Frodo could not be a hero unless he was born into a story with many chapters already played out before his own. His moment derives its weight and urgency from the moments that have come before.

the power of proclaiming.

You enforce by proclaiming what is true over the subject.

in the heart of every man is a desperate desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to love.

God seems to be of the opinion that no one should sustain the rigors of the Christian life without very robust and concrete hopes of brazen reward.

Church is not a building. Church is not an event that takes place on Sundays. I know, it's how we've come to think of it. "I go to First Baptist." "We are members of St. Luke's." "Is it time to go to church?" Much to our surprise, that is not how the Bible uses the term. Not at all. Certainly, the body of Christ is a vast throng, millions of people around the globe. But when Scripture talks about church, it means community.

Femininity can never bestow masculinity.

requiring all things to recognize and yield to that authority, announcing that the authority of Jesus Christ is now in effect here.

Most messages for men ultimately fail. The reason is simple: 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.

The reason we love The Chronicles of Narnia or Star Wars or The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings is that they are telling us something about our lives that we never, ever get on the evening news. Or from most pulpits. This is our most desperate hour. Without this burning in our hearts, we lose the meaning of our days.

But the road to hell, as we remember, is paved with good intentions. That they are a near total failure should seem obvious by now.

We interpret Jesus through our brokenness. A painful truth, but also a hopeful truth. Maybe we can open up the doors and windows we didn't know we closed.

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.

Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story of the Tin Woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a new heart. "All the same," said the Scarecrow, "I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one." "I shall take the heart," returned the Tin Woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.

When we abandon ourselves to love, we find ourselves closer to the one who is always doing that Himself. We find God.

Notice, there was a man who was once real and alive and in love. But after a series of blows, his humanity was reduced to efficiency. He became a sort of machine—a hollow man. At first he did not even notice, for his condition made him an excellent woodman, as any person can become productive like a machine when he forgoes his heart.

What does it say that you look like some sort of nut job when you turn your phone off?

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.