Max Lucado's Blog Archives - Page 2 of 11

Can You Find Joy in Despair?

Amanda Todd became an unwitting spokesperson for despair at the age of fifteen after a predator had convinced her to pose topless for a photo, and then posted it online. With one keystroke, Amanda became a laughingstock. Already a fragile and private person, she retreated even further. She avoided friends, stayed home. Still, she couldn’t escape the texts, calls, and stares. She changed schools, but the mockery followed. She descended into drugs and alcohol, and began cutting herself. She attempted suicide. Finally, in an act of desperation, she posted a nine-minute video on YouTube. Using flash cards, she recounted her … Read More

Bring Your Children to Jesus

“Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children” (Lamentations 2:19). Dads, we can do this. We can be loyal advocates, stubborn intercessors. We can take our parenting fears to Christ. In fact, if we don’t, we’ll take our fears out on our kids. Fear turns some parents into paranoid prison guards who monitor every minute, check the background of every friend. They stifle growth and communicate distrust. A family with no breathing room suffocates a child. On the other hand, fear can also create permissive … Read More

The Struggle of Suicide

The suicides of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain and fashion designer Kate Spade illustrate an all-too-common tragedy— the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) reported this week that nearly 45,000 people committed suicide in the U.S. in 2016 alone, and said the suicide rate in the U.S. rose by nearly 30 percent from 1999 to 2016. While the CDC report isn’t surprising, it is sobering. If a disease saw such a spike like we’ve seen with suicides, we would deem it an epidemic. How do we explain the increase? We’ve never been more educated. We have tools of technology our parents … Read More

This Evil Will Not Last Forever

I’m not sure how many more of these we can take. When I saw the words: students shot in Sante Fe school, my reaction was, “Not again.” We seem to lurch from tragedy to tragedy, shooting to shooting, bombing to bombing. The kids didn’t deserve such a death. Their parents don’t deserve such grief. And we received an all too common reminder: life isn’t fair. When did you learn those words? It’s not fair. What deed exposed you to the imbalanced scales of life? Did a car wreck leave you fatherless? Did friends forget you, a teacher ignore you, an … Read More

Farewell, Mr. Graham

(photo taken last time I met Billy Graham in 2010; Cliff Barrows, Music Director for BGEA is in background ) They were born within two years of each other, yet no one took notice. No headline announced the baby in South Africa, the girl in Macedonia, or the arrival of the infant in Poland. And the little boy born on the farm in North Carolina? His arrival garnered no headline. But his departure certainly does. Billy Graham was the final of the four to depart. Mother Theresa. Pope John Paul II. Nelson Mandela. Their faces form a Mount Rushmore of … Read More

It’s Not Too Late

When Denalyn and I travel together, she wants to drive. It’s not that she loves the steering wheel, it’s just that she loves to stay on track. My mind tends to wander. My thoughts tend to stray. I may be on a highway, but mentally, I’m in a distant land. Consequently, I miss exits, forget to turn, or stray off course. More than once she has dozed off only to awaken in a strange location. The ensuing conversation goes like this: “Where are we?” “I don’t know.” “What happened?” “I think I messed up.” “Max, we will never get there … Read More

Let’s Be Donkeys This Christmas

Christmas bespeaks of nativity. And nativity gives occasion to nativity plays. Who knows who first came up with the idea of dramatizing the birth of Christ, but the first script has inspired innumerable others. Though each has its own unique wrinkle, they all have some common features: angels with chiffon wings, wise men and their gifts from afar. A weary innkeeper will turn Mary away. A wide-eyed Joseph will bunch the manger’s hay. And Mary, weary and sweet will say, “I think today.” Beneath a suspended star a baby will be born, the angels will sing, the wise men will … Read More

This Brutal World

“Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” Matthew 10:28 Yet again, yet so soon, we struggle to make sense of bloodshed and violence. Last week bikers mowed down on New York City’s Westside. Sunday, worshippers slaughtered in a small-town South Texas church. Life is a dangerous endeavor. We pass our days in the shadows of ominous realities. The power to annihilate humanity has, it seems, been placed in the hands of people who are happy to do so. Contrary to what we’d hope, good people aren’t exempt from violence. Murderers don’t give the godly a … Read More

Evil: Why in the World?

(featured image by Mark Ralston, Getty Images) The Las Vegas mass murders leave us reeling; struggling to make sense of such tragedy. Where the Bible may not tell us the why of the tragedies, it is quick to tell us who. Our fight is not against people on earth but against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly world (Ephesians 6:12 NCV). The Bible names a real and present foe of our faith: the devil. He is not just a symbol for evil, he is the source … Read More

Hurricane Irma is Coming: Where is God?

©Max Lucado, published at FoxNews.com September 8, 2017 (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) Texans wading through water that covers prized possessions. Floridians fleeing a hurricane that is wider than their state. Forecasts of apocalyptic wind and waves. Wildfires filling the west coast with smoke. An earthquake rocks Mexico. Buildings collapse. Tsunamis threaten. How can this all be happening? How should we respond? And, most of all, where is God? Scripture has answers. Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea” (Luke 21:25, … Read More