MAX LUCADO

an advanced copy of Unshakable. Yeah, it is Unshakable Hope, and I just have to say I opened it up and was like maybe five paragraphs in, and my heart was was beating stronger, like like my daughter has asthma and when she can't breathe, she has to take abuter all and so one time, when she was two or three, I thought, I want to know what this does. So I took a hit of it just to feel what she feels when she takes the bull and it makes your heart beat faster and you feel you can actually

feel the oxygen, your blood getting oxygenated. And I was maybe five pages, not even not even five pages, five or ten paragraphs into Unshakable Hope, and I had that physical sensation, Max, of my heart beating stronger, and I felt like my blood was getting oxygen eated with Hope. I'm happy to hear that. I mean, you know, hope

can can feel like it's in short supply. And I feel like if we can just give each other enough hope to face these challenges of life that are so unspeakably difficult, these uphill stretches that that we're called to climb, h then we've done just such a great favor, one for the other. Finding hope. It's not easy, it's not at all. It's not that you're your gift of storytelling and taking stories that you know are two or three thousand years old and retelling them in a way that

that is easy to digest. It's like the albuticle from my daughter and made her lungs able to absorb the oxygen. Your gift of storytelling max makes us able to absorb the wisdom. Well, I really appreciate that. I really do. And um, you know, I've I love to tell stories, but I'm mainly I'm I'm just an old preacher, you know. Uh And and so every week I I do what you do every night. You have a much harder, harder job than I do. But you know, every week I'm

trying to find a way to encourage people. And uh so, so one of the tools I've used over the years is UH is teaching people the promises of God. And there's about seven thousand promises of God in the Bible.

And if we and if we can learn to tap into the power of these promises, I really think that it it gives us access to hope that they're they're kind of like an apothecary of of hope because whenever we face particular challenges, if we can be acquainted with with the promises of God, will find that there are there are promises that match our problems and and getting acquainted with these promises really gives us a place to go.

It doesn't mean it's going to be easy and and there's not gonna be some hard, hard days, but I think it does give us hope that that we're going to get through this challenge and I'm going to stand on this particular promise to help me get through it. And that's UH. Like I said, when I opened the book and started reading, that was what I was immediately impressed with was your your ability to take those promises

and share them with us the reader. Even if you've been a believer for years or decades, it's easy at least for me, when you're in a circumstance to lose sight of those promises, yeah, and to feel like the circumstances so overwhelming. Yeah, it is. It's just I'm sure would never want to leave the impression that it's easy. And I know that you're acquainted with really the dark knight of the soul. Every one of your listeners has gone through seasons in which they wondered if they were

going to make it through. And I don't. I don't think as a pastor even as a friend, I do anybody any favor by uh, you know, leaving the impression that it's easy. It's just, it's just all we can do some days, just to climb out of bed. You know, in fact, climbing out of bed can be the victory. But what I what I want to do is give about rolling out onto the floor, rowing, just landing on the floor. You know what. A For example, here, here's a promise from God. It's it's in Psalm thirty and

verse five, and it's just such a beautiful verse. It says weeping may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning. I've said, I've used that verse so many times as I sit down and talk to somebody, uh after church or in their living room when they're passing through a tough time, and I just say, you know, I know that weeping has come your way, but but it's not gonna last forever. It's really not the promise

the promises joy comes. It's not gonna come as quickly as you might want, or even in the fashion that you want. But would you be willing to just be open to the possibility that joy is gonna come? And and and and just that verse? I think De Lana is an example of sometimes that's all we need somebody to do is just say, Okay, weeping comes, but so does joy. We don't need an explanation, you know, or or even proof, just just a verse from scripture to give us enough hope to roll over and fall out

of bed. When I first I was in my late twenties when I came to know God. I had a pastor that had me right versus on little note cards and talk him in my purse, or put him in the bathroom on the mirror, or he said, wherever you know you visit most during the day, he says, if you go to the coffee pot at work, you know, talk one by the coffee pot. Yeah and uh and from I said, well, then that would be putting it

in the refrigerator. But I did that. I took his advice and I wrote up, you know, passages that were important and I did that. And as I'm reading through Unshakable Hope, your new book, um, I'm going to do that. I'm going to actually physically copy down some of these wonderful promises and put them on note cards and stick them in my pocketbook, and stick them on my refrigerator and stick them, you know, on the mirror in the bathroom when I brush my teeth, because I need to

be reminded of those promises right now. Yeah. You know, the story that we've heard from the Teachings of Jesus is the story of the two builders, you know, one who built his house on the rock and one who built his house on the sand. What they have in common is that both of them experienced the storm. Um. What they're don't where their stories diverge is that one house collapsed in the other house withstood the storm. So the message there is that all of us face storms. Um,

young people, old people, rich people, poor people. Everybody faces storms. Some people are destroyed by the storms, and and that's what we don't want to happen. You know, we've we've got to help each other. We've got to help each other. And and Jesus said, the difference is the person who withstands the story arm is one who here's my teaching

and applies a life to it. So so the idea is not just to hear, not just to know that God has spoken, but to begin building your laugh on top of a foundation you know that says okay, God said this, And so my emotions those are sandy foundations. But the rock, Yeah, the rock, that's what we need, isn't it. That's what we need. I actually, um recently had an experience that I know it's gonna work great when I'm out doing public speaking again or preaching again.

Because my porch was soggy. I went out on my porch and when I would step on it, it kind of felt mushy. And so I kept saying, on my hobby, you gotta go to look at the porch, this one spot. It feels kind of mushy. So he says, Okay, I'll have my friend DoD come over and we'll tear off some of the decking and figured out. So they tear off the decking. Comes in, he says, eight news. Good news. Point is just mushy in that one spot because the decking had got wet and that had done d D

and we just need to get some new decking. Great. A few hours later they came in they said, not so great news. Uh, wasn't just a decking issue. Wasn't just the top layer. Seems like the beams that run under the porch that holds the porch up were not continuous beams. The builder had sistered them together and had not left enough space and and didn't use heavy duty screws. He just nailed two or three boards together and they've collapsed. Great, So now they not only have to take the decking off,

now they're going to have to replace some beams. The next day, my husband comes in and he's white as a sheet, and I said what he goes, well, it's a little bit more than just the decking or the beams. The pads, the cement pads that had been poured to hold the whole house. The porch is twelve ft wide and it wraps around the whole house, and there's a metal roof above that is part of the house. The

paths that were poured under each post. Each post is four five ft apart, should have been three or four ft square. They were fourteen inches and with all the bad weather, they had sunk down into the mud. One of them had sunk down eight inches. Literally, my porch was falling off, which means my house is compromised. But all that to illustrate what you just said. So sorry that happened to your house, but it is a perfect illustration. You know, the most important part of the house is

the foundation, right exactly. It's it's probably the most expensive. Uh. But but if the foundation's not there, so I guess the question would be upon what are we building our lives. I've been guilty of building my life on a relay, aation ship. I've been guilty of building my life on pleasure, you know, and we've come to find that people and pleasure, they're they're terrific, I mean, golly yeah, but but they're

not stable foundations upon which to build a life. And so I think that's a great question, Delilah, that we could all ask ourselves right now today, upon what am I building my life? And am I staking my hope on a person, or upon a retirement account, upon my career. If so those that's risky, that's really risk that's really risky. And you know what, Max, I've noticed the last five or ten years, people are building their hope or staking

their hope on political parties, on the current economy. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. Yeah, the Bible comes at the whole idea of hope very realistically. And and there's a passage in the Book of Hebrews I talked about in in this book on hope where the Scripture says, for we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, and not that word anchor, a N C H O R,

not anger, but a anchor. That speaks to me because I grew up even though I didn't grow up on the coast, I did grow up fishing, and I know the purpose of an anchor. And you don't anchor a boat to another boat. You don't anchor a boat to a buoy, you don't anchor a boat to a tree. You drop that anchor to the bottom of the waterbed and you wait until it tugs against something that is so rock solid that no matter what storm comes, You're not gonna be sucked out to see. And and this

is what we all need. We just need an anchor. We need we need an anchor for the soul. And that would just contend that no other person can be an anchor. No political party can be an really, no religion can. And if you define religion just as you know, somebody's philosophy about God, but but God himself, I really believe can be that anchor. He can be that foundation, and consequently we can have the promise of a solid hope for our soul. I love the picture you chose

for the cover of the book. It's red and white lighthouse on top of this massive rock and it looks like a stormy sky out to see. It's beautiful, isn't it. It's beautiful. That's got to be on the East coast. Yeah. It looks like something along the New England uh shoreline. It looks like something you see in Maine, uh, somewhere along along that Coastline's beautiful, but such a beautiful representation of of what a lighthouse us in the storms of life.

You've seen your share of lighthouses, I'm sure right, Oh yeah, I used to draw and paint them. For I went through a season of lighthouses where I probably drew and painted twenty or thirty from from the East coast and on on the West coast. Yeah, I would go visit them, take pictures, learn their history, and then draw or paint them. But I don't recognize this one. Yeah, you spent a lot of your life along the coastlines. I have never not lived by the ocean. I've lived on both both

sides of the US. I have never lived in the middle. I have always probably because I was born, you know, less than two miles from the ocean. Uh. I don't know. God just has shown mercy and he knows. I love the water. But I've always lived Uh. Philadelphia was the furthest inland I've ever lived, and that was only fifty minutes to the Jersey Show. Are so Yeah, Yeah, I love But I love the story of the lighthouse. I love what they what they do, and how they work.

And who knows how many lives have been saved by the lighthouses. Ah, but how many millions of lives have been saved by unshakable hope. Unshakable hope, You're a special, special soul Delilah. Thank you. I know I've told you before, but I've been listening to you, Kyle. They I don't know over two decades? Could it be that longer? Or longer I've been on the air, Max. This September will be forty four years. How could that be if you're not even I know crazy? Huh? How I found a

magical time clock to turn back the hands of time? Uh? Just like my my porch, you know, with the eighteen instrument pads sinking in the mud. My foundation quickly sank in the mud. But your book unshakable. Hope, I hope everybody, anybody who is going through a dark time right now who might be forgetting the promises of God or might be questioning them. I actually heard my own mouth saying, yeah, I believe in God. I just don't believe he cares about me right now. Yeah. And and you know what,

I he better care about you. I mean, that's all I gotta say. You don't. I don't think we I don't need a God. That sounded terrible for me to say that. I mean it all disrespectful, but but God sure is shooting better love us. He does, and I know that. But your book reminded me of that. Yeah, and he does. It's just that when your emotions take over, it kind of cancels out what you know to be true.

And this book Unshakable Hope for anybody who is going through tough time and your faith has been shaken, you need to read this book. And if you're not going through a tough time, you should get this book, like as preventive medicine, because you're gonna go through a tough time, isn't it true? We're all going to go through stuff. What's that old line they say if you're either coming out of a hard time, you're in the midst of a hard time, or you're just a calendar flip from

a hard time exactly. So just I take my vitamins even when I don't have a cold, to kind of, you know, prevent them. I take that airborne stuff when I fly on an airplane to prevent it. So I'm saying, Max, anybody who's not going through a hard time needs your book Unshakable Hope, because because they're just that calendar flip away from from something that might make them forget God's promise that weeping may last through the night. But joy

does come in all right, Max. Thank you, God bless you and your family, and God bless you for writing unshakable hope. Thank you so much. You have a great day. Thank you, honey,