John Eldredge - You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know

Copyright 2004 by John Eldredge

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville,Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Orange, California.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eldredge, John.
You have what it takes : what every father needs to hear / John Eldredge.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7852-6060-9 (pbk.)
1. FathersReligious life. 2. FatherhoodReligious aspectsChristianity. I.Title.
BV4846.E44 2004
248.8'421dc22

2004001716

Printed in the United States of America

04 05 06 07 08 OPM 5 4 3 2 1

To my father

CONTENTS

Every little boy is asking one basic question.

You notice it in nearly everything he does.

Little boys love adventure. Just the other day my wife was having a cup of coffee in the kitchen when she sawout of the corner of her eyesomething fly out the second-story window. She investigated and found a rope, made of bedsheets, hanging from the boys bedroom window. They had stripped their beds, knotted the sheets together, anchored the rope to their bunk beds, and were rappelling down the side of the house, Batman style. Just a typical Saturday morning in a house of boys.

Give a little guy a bicycle. Is it enough that he learns to ride it? Of course not. As soon as those training wheels are off (no, sooner), hes seeing how fast it can go, riding with no hands, jumping it off the curb, making skid marks on the sidewalk, racing against all comers. Noises go with it, too, noises that no one needs to teach a boyhe just knows how to make them. Loud engine noises and speedy, whooshing noises and screeching, crashing noises and a soundtrack to go with it all. That is no mere bike hes riding, and he is no mere boy. Hes a motor-cycle racer, a fighter pilot, a starship captain.

Look at the stories boys love, the games they play.They are full of battle and adventure and danger.They love to build things... and then blow em up.They love to jump off stuff. What does a boy wear if you let him wear what he wants to wear? Let him out of his school clothes and his Sunday school togs, and in a moment hell be decked out in camouflage, army style, or dressed up as a cowboy, a fireman, a superhero, a Jedi knight with a bath towel wrapped around him and a stern look in his eye. Every boy wants to be a hero. Every boy wants to be powerful, he wants to be dangerous, and he wants to know: Do I have what it takes?

Thats the question every boy is asking: Do I have what it takes?

And when he grows a bit older, it turns to fast cars (the louder, the better), computer games of battle and adventure, and making the sports team. He wants to hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth. He wants to make a slam dunk just before the buzzer sounds. If hes more academically inclined, well, then, he wants to win at chess; he wants to ace the test; he wants to come out on top. He wants to prove himself. And all through those years, when hes riding his bike with no hands or trying to look cool and doing all those other things that boys do, he is lookingto impress you.

Because every boy shares the same basic question:Do I have what it takes?

And every boy looks to his dad to answer it.

Every little girl is asking one basic question too. But its a very different question.

You can observe it there in nearly every-thing she does. Little girls typically dont invent games where bloodshed is a prerequisite for having fun, where large numbers of people die as a regular part of the routine. On the other hand, boys dont love to brush each others hair.They dont go to tea parties (unless they are dragged into them by their sisters). Sitting down over make-believe china, being very polite, and having grownup conversations make the party an entirely feminine affair. Its all part of those relational games that girls create. Boys may have invented hockey, but little girls invented games like wedding day and mommies and daddies and rescue the princess.You dont have to teach them to do itit comes naturally. Its part of their design.

This is not to say that girls dislike adventure. They love to climb trees and make mud pies and all that. Many girls love to play sports. But there is something profoundly different between little boys and little girls. Watch them on a rainy day.Trapped inside the house, boys make up games like terrorize the cat and urban commando. Girls cuddle and care for a favorite doll or stuffed animal, or they dress up the family puppy. Speaking of dress up, that was a feminine creation as well. Give a group of girls a chest of gowns and shoes and Moms costume jewelry, and they are captured for hours playing princess and movie star and generally being beautiful.

For her question is very different from that of her brothers. Every little girl wants to know: Am I lovely?

And when she grows a bit older, she talks on the phone for hours and wants to know who is dating whom.While the guy is clue-less about what to wear to the prom, it is a very big deal for a young woman. She watches shows about relationships, pores over fashion magazines and bridal magazines, and loves to get cards and flowers from a secret admirer. Why are flowers such a big deal for women? I have been sent flowers once in my life, and I thought it was weird. But my wife loves to get flowers. Have you ever wondered why? Because of what it says. Im thinking of you... I delight in you. All through those years, when shes dressing up and doing shows for you and playing princess and trying to look beautiful and shedding tears over the fact that she might not be, she is trying to captureyour attention.

She wants to know: Am I lovely? Thats the question every little girl is asking. And she looks to her dad to answer it.

Im going to make fathering very simple: answer your childs question.

Answer, Yes, you have what it takes, or Yes, you are lovely.

Answer it a thousand times in a thou-sand ways over the course of your sons or daughters life, and you will have done your job. You will have hit a home run.You dont need a Ph.D. in child psychology to be a dad. It isnt rocket science. Understand what a little boy and a little girl need to hear from their dad; understand each ones question. Then answer it intentionally, answer it with love, and you will have offered the best a father can give.