You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times by Max Lucado ($9.99 for the Kindle edition on Amazon) is a thoughtful and encouraging book about facing hard times. The biblical foundation for the book is the Old Testament story of Joseph, a man who certainly experienced more than his fair share of brutal adversity. However, Joseph did not give in to discouragement, self pity, self indulgence, or bitterness. He came out victorious. Building on Joseph’s story, Lucado offers the following hopeful, faith-filled, and frank advice for everyone facing hard times:
You’ll get through this. It won’t be painless. It won’t be quick. But God will use this mess for good. In the meantime don’t be foolish or naive. But don’t despair either. With God’s help you will get through this.
For All its Rottenness, the Pit Forces You to Look Upward
Lucado writes, “Does God guarantee the absence of struggle and the abundance of strength? Not in this life. But he does pledge to reweave your pain for a higher purpose.” I find Lucado’s point of view especially encouraging in light of the current Covid-19 pandemic. Much like Joseph, the attack of this virus caught us off guard. We did not know it was coming. It has completely disrupted life as we know it. Therefore, Lucado’s description of Joseph’s plight seems applicable:
Here you are in your version of Egypt. It feels foreign. You don’t know the language. You never studied the vocabulary of crisis. You feel far from home, all alone. Money gone. Expectations dashed. Friends vanished. Who’s left? God is . . . Make God’s presence your passion.
Wisdom in Adversity:
Lucado unpacks Joseph’s story with a number of memorable observations on a wide variety of subjects. Here is a sampling of the many quotes I highlighted:
- Sexual temptation: “You don’t fix a struggling marriage with an affair, a drug problem with more drugs, debt with more debt. You don’t fix stupid with stupid. You don’t get out of a mess by making another one. Do what pleases God. You will never go wrong doing what is right.”
- Trials and testing: “In the Bible a test is an external trial that purifies and prepares the heart. . . Every day God tests us through people, pain or problems.”
- Promotion: “The reward of good work is greater work. Do you aspire to great things? Excel in the small things. Show up on time. Finish your work early. Don’t complain. Let others grumble in the corner of the prison cell. Not you.”
- Serve and care for others: “Compassion matters to God. This is the time for service, not self-centeredness. Cancel the pity party. Love the people God brings to you. And share the message God gives to you. This test will become your testimony . . . Your mess can become your message.”
- The waiting room: “To wait, biblically speaking, is not to assume the worst, worry, fret, make demands, or take control. Nor is waiting inactivity. Waiting is a sustained effort to stay focused on God through prayer and belief.”
- Jesus is the only picture of God ever taken: “Look at Jesus . . . He doesn’t recoil, run, or retreat at the sight of pain. Just the opposite. He didn’t walk the earth in an insulated bubble or preach from an isolated, germfree, pain-free island. He took his own medicine. He played by his own rules. . . He exacts nothing from us that he did not experience himself.”
- Healing for unhealed hurts: “He gives us more than we request by going deeper than we ask. He wants not only your whole heart; he wants your heart whole. Why? Hurt people hurt people. Think about it. Why do you fly off the handle? Why do you avoid conflict? Why do you seek to please everyone? Might your tendencies have something to do with an unhealed hurt in your heart?”
- When we can’t see what God is doing: “God doesn’t manufacture pain, but he certainly puts it to use . . . We can’t always see what God is doing, but can’t we assume he is up to something good? Joseph did. He assumed God was in the crisis.”
Keep Calm and Carry On
Lucado, concludes the book with this brief summary. “Trust God to do what you can’t. Obey God, and do what you can. Don’t let the crisis paralyze you. Don’t let the sadness overwhelm you. Don’t let the fear intimidate you. To do nothing is the wrong thing. To do something is the right thing. And to believe is the highest thing. Just . . . KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.”
A Highly recommended Read
You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times by Max Lucado is a thoughtful book with a great deal of wisdom and helpful biblical insight. It is an easy read, and very well written. In my view, it is especially beneficial in light of the many unexpected challenges we feel and face during today’s Corona virus pandemic.