JOHN ELDREDGE

Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is what is written in their hearts. That is what little boys play at. That is what men's movies are about. You just see it. It is undeniable.

Just like sunshine affects others, when the life of Jesus invades your life, you become a loving person. The effect on others is amazing.

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.

In ancient African cultures, a young man was not considered a full member of the tribe, an elder, a man. He couldn't marry and he couldn't own land until he had killed a lion. It was symbolic.

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.

To be in theater you have to be a kind of psychologist, for you're always trying to understand character and motives.

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.

Validation comes to us in two ways: through trials we overcome, and through the words of older men.

I started working at Focus on the Family doing debates and media and cultural studies.

We've made elevator music of Jesus Christ. We've made Him the most boring, bland, blah person; and He was the most revolutionary man.

For the most part, boys are very physical. It's not enough for them to be told they have what it takes and they have greatness. They have to discover for themselves. We learn by doing. The doing has to be somewhat physical.

It takes enormous strength to be a real woman.

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.

The modern era has brought up immense conveniences but at what price. The human heart is desperate for something more than a quicker serving of popcorn.

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.

You get guys around a campfire, and they start telling their stories. That's the fellowship that they want to be in.

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.

The guy who sits in front of the television is unengaged. That man is a bad man.

It takes great courage to be vulnerable. It takes enormous strength to be a real woman.

I have a call to speak, to write, to do sort of deep-heart surgery in people's lives.

'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.

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.

A woman wants to be romanced. She wants to be an essential part of a great adventure; she wants a beauty to unveil. That is what little girls play at, and those are the movies women love and the stories that they love.

Most Christians are still living with an Old Testament view of their heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, 'My heart is deceitfully wicked.' No, it's not. Not after the work of Christ, because the promise of the new covenant is a new heart.

Where a man's strength and courage is tested most is in the way that he treats women - the way that he loves.