Quotes from John Eldredge

The mind is a faculty, and a magnificent one at that. But the heart is the dwelling place of our true beliefs.

What if those deep desires in our hearts are telling us the truth, revealing to us the life we were meant to live? God gave us eyes so that we might see; he gave us ears that we might hear; he gave us will that we might choose, and he gave us hearts that we might live. The way we handle the heart is everything.

The adventures and work that we choose must fit the soul of the boy. One young man's adventure would be terrifying to another.

The secret of Christianity is something else altogether—the life of Christ in you. Allowing his life to become your life. His revolution is not self-transformation, but his transformation of you, from the inside out, as you receive his life and allow him to live through you. Vine, branch. Anything else is madness.

The problem of self-identity is not just a problem for the young. It is a problem all the time. Perhaps the problem. It should haunt old age, and when it no longer does it should tell you that you are dead.

Receive it for the gift it is! Pause, and let the beauty minister to you. I receive this into my soul. Too often we just notice and go on, like a pedestrian who steps over a hundred-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. Stop and pick it up! In these moments you open yourself and receive the beauty, the gift, the grace—receive it into your being. Let it bring to you God's love, his tenderness, his rich goodness.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." (Rom. 8:15)

That glory was shared with us; we became, in G. K. Chesterton's words, "a statue of God walking about the garden," endowed with a strength and beauty all our own. All that we ever wished we could be, we were—and more. We were fully alive.

Beautiful things, as Matisse shows, always carry greetings from other worlds within them.

The outer life we live from ought (I ought to do this) rather than from desire (I want to do this) and management substitutes for mystery.

Intimacy with God is the purpose of our lives. It's why God created us.

He didn't make Adam from polyester, but from the dust of the earth, and he didn't set him down at the mall, but in the outdoors, in nature. The created world, with all its beauty and diversity and wildness, this is the world God intended for us to live in relationship to.