In Chapter 5 of You’ll Get Through This, Pastor Max Lucado observes that each day has a pop quiz- and some seasons of our lives are final exams. Joseph found one such final exam when he was thrown in prison as a direct result of Mrs. Potiphar’s lies. Yet God knew the challenges that lay […]
“Until the time came to fulfill his word, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.” -Psalm 105: 19 (New Living Translation) Max Lucado begins Chapter 5 (“Oh, So This is Boot Camp”) of You’ll Get Through This with fighter pilot Howard Rutledge’s description of the “Heartbreak Hotel”- a prison in Hanoi. The austere conditions produced maximum sensory […]
“Do what is right as a sacrifice to the Lord and trust in the Lord.” -Psalm 4: 5 In Chapter 4 (“Stupid Won’t Fix Stupid”) of You’ll Get Through This, author Max Lucado cautions against compounding an adverse situation with a poor, impulsive choice. Max adds: “Egypt can be a cruddy place. No one disagrees […]
In today’s post, Max Lucado (You’ll Get Through This) discusses the fourth and final way to open our souls to God’s presence. 4. Lean on God’s people. Pastor Lucado states that we need to cancel our escape to the Himalayas and forget about that trip to a deserted island. This is no time to be […]
In today’s post, Max Lucado (You’ll Get Through This) presents the third way to open our souls to God’s presence. 3. Pray your pain out. As Pastor Lucado asserts: “It’s time for tenacious, honest prayers.” Let God know how you feel, and don’t hold anything back. Christine Anderson expands on this concept in “Questions for […]
In Chapter 3 of You’ll Get Through This, Max Lucado continues his discussion of opening our souls to God’s presence. 2. Cling to his character. Pastor Lucado exhorts us to make an exhaustive list of God’s qualities, of who we know God to be: “Quarry from your Bible a list of the deep qualities of […]
In Chapter 3 of You’ll Get Through This, Max Lucado continues his rock/sponge comparison by stating that we must resist hardening our hearts. The solution is not to blame God or run from Him. Rather, like a sponge, we need to open every pore of our souls to God’s presence. The first comparison is described […]
Max Lucado begins Chapter 3 (“Alone, But Not All Alone”) of You’ll Get Through This by observing that we pass much, if not most, of life at mid-altitude. Occasionally we’ll summit a peak. On other occasions, the world bottoms out. Max describes what our version of Egypt is like: “It feels foreign. You don’t know […]
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last.” -John 15: 6 In Chapter 2 (“Down, Down, Down to Egypt”) of You’ll Get Through This, author Max Lucado notes that Joseph survived his first years in Egypt because he believed that God had […]
As Max Lucado concludes Chapter 1 of You’ll Get Through This, he states that God is the Master Weaver who “stretches the yarn and intertwines the colors, the ragged twine with the velvet string, the pains with pleasures.” God also is the Master Builder who will construct, or bring about, good from evil. Just as […]
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” -Genesis 50: 20 (NIV) Max Lucado begins Chapter 1 of You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times with three vignettes about life in the pits, one involving a fifty-seven-year-old […]
In Chapter 7 of The Prodigal God, Timothy Keller concludes his discussion of the ways our lives will be shaped by Jesus’s gospel message as he presents the fourth way to experience a feast. 4. Salvation is communal. Feasts are by definition communal. However, as Pastor Keller notes, we live in a culture where the […]