Quotes from John Eldredge

Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man.

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.

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

We need Jesus like we need oxygen. Like we need water. Like the branch needs the vine. Jesus is not merely a figure for devotions. He is the missing essence of your existence. Whether we know it or not, we are desperate for Jesus.

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.

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.

The purpose of his life, death, and resurrection was to ransom you from your sin, deliver you from the clutches of evil, restore you to God - so that his personality and his life could heal and fill your personality. Your humanity, and your life. This is the reason he came. Anything else is religion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Because she bears the image of God. She doesn't have to conjure it, go get it from a salon, have plastic surgery or breast implants. No, beauty is an essence that is given to every woman at her creation.

We don't need accountability groups; we need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside, someone to watch our back.

Most men wait to move until victory is guaranteed.

the reason there are so many struggling women is because there were so many wounded girls.

There is no greater place for damage (than marriage) because there is no greater place for glory.

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.

Emasculation happens in marriage as well. Women are often attracted to the wilder side of a man, but once having caught him they settle down to the task of domesticating him. Ironically, if he gives in he'll resent her for it, and she in turn will wonder where the passion has gone.

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.

Sometimes the idea of living as a hermit appeals to all of us. No demands, no needs, no pain, no disappointments. But that is because we have been hurt, are worn out.

All men die; few men ever really live.

One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving. (Ps. 62:11–12)

Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. (Josh. 1:6–7, 9)

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