Max Lucado

You could read David’s story in the Bible and wonder what God saw in him. He fell as often as he stood, stumbled as often as he conquered. Yet for those who know the sound of a Goliath, David gives us this reminder: Focus on giants. you stumble. Focus on God, your giants tumble.

You know a Goliath. You recognize his walk, his talk. David saw a Goliath, yet he heard more. David showed up and raised the subject of the living God. He saw the giant, mind you; he just saw God more so. Listen carefully to David’s battle cry: “You come to me with a sword, with a spear and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:45 NKJV).

Lift your eyes, giant-slayer! The God who made a miracle out of David stands ready to make one out of you.

Read more Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible

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See the cross on the hill? Can you hear the soldiers pound the nails? Jesus’ enemies smirk. “This time,” Satan whispers, “this time I will win.” For a sad Friday and a silent Saturday, it appeared he had. What Satan intended as the ultimate evil, God used for the ultimate good. God rolled the rock away, and Jesus walked out on Sunday morning. If you look closely, you can see Satan scampering from the cemetery with his forked tail between his legs. “Will I ever win?” he grumbles. No, he won’t.

Do you believe no evil is beyond God’s reach? That he can redeem every pit, including one in which you find yourself? Trust God. He’ll get you through this. Will it be easy or quick? I hope so, but it seldom is. Yet God will make good out of this mess. That’s his job.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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Life turns every person upside down. No one escapes unscathed. Not the woman who discovers her husband is having an affair. Not the businessman whose investments are embezzled by a crooked colleague. Not the pastor who feels his faith shaken by questions of suffering and fear. We’d be foolish to think we’re invulnerable. But we’d be just as foolish to think that evil wins the day. The Bible vibrates with the steady drumbeat of faith. God recycles evil into righteousness.

Joseph, saddled with family rejection, slavery, and imprisonment, emerged triumphant—a hero of his generation. Among his final words to his brothers are these: “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.” It’s the repeated pattern in Scripture: evil, God, good. Trust God. God will make good out of this mess.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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You can’t control the weather. You aren’t in charge of the economy. You can’t un-wreck the car. But you can map out a strategy. Remember, God is in this crisis.

Ask God to give you two or three steps you can take today. Seek counsel from someone who’s faced a similar challenge. Ask friends to pray. Most importantly, make a plan. You’d prefer a miracle for your crisis? You’d rather see the stormy sea turned glassy calm in a finger snap? God may do this. Then again, he may say, “I’m with you. I can use this for good. Now let’s make a plan.”

God’s sovereignty doesn’t negate our responsibility. It empowers it. So don’t let the crisis paralyze you. Trust God to do what you can’t. Obey God, and do what you can.

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Calamities can leave us off balance and confused. Consider the crisis of Joseph’s generation as recorded in Genesis 47: “Now there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Canaan languished because of the famine” (Genesis 47:13 NKJV).

Joseph faced a calamity on a global scale. Joseph told his brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you” (Genesis 45:5-7 NKJV). Joseph began and ended his crisis with God. God preceded the famine; God would outlive the famine.

How would you describe your crisis? Do you recite your woes more naturally than you do heaven’s strength? You’re assuming God isn’t in the crisis; he is. Even a famine was fair game for God’s purpose.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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The word goodbye. This word may be the challenge of your life. How does a person get through raging loneliness, strength-draining  grief? The rest of the world has moved on; you ache to do the same. Take heart. God has served notice. All farewells are on the clock. “The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God’s trumpet blast! He will come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise. Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. Oh, we’ll be walking on air. And there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. Reassure one another with these words!” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 MSG).

Revelation 21:4 promises, “He will wipe every tear from our eyes.” Isn’t this our hope? God has promised a restoration of all things. And that includes you.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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Colossians 3:13 says, “As Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” Really, God? Begin the process of healing. How? Keep no list of wrongs. Pray for your antagonists rather than plot against them. Hate the wrong without hating wrongdoers. Turn your attention away from what they did to you to what Christ did for you. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them, too. If he thinks they are worth forgiving, they are.

Does that make forgiveness easy? No. Quick? Seldom. Painless? Forgiveness vacillates. It has fits and starts, good days and bad. Anger intermingled with love. Irregular mercy. We make progress only to make a wrong turn. Step forward and fall back. But it’s okay. As long as you’re trying to forgive, you’re forgiving. It’s when you no longer try that bitterness sets in. So Keep trying, keep forgiving.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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Vengeance is God’s. He will repay—whether ultimately on the Day of Judgment or intermediately in this life. God can discipline your abusive boss. He can bring your ex to his knees or to her senses. Forgiveness doesn’t diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. He guarantees the right retribution. The God of justice has the precise prescription.

Forgive your enemies? That’s where you and I come in. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” Paul wrote, “and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26-27 NASB). Don’t give the devil territory or ground. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he will move in and stink up the place! When it comes to forgiveness, all of us are beginners. Stay the course.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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God moves us forward by healing our past. Can he really? Can God heal this ancient hurt in my heart? Of course he can. In fact, God cares about justice more than we do. God reminds us in Romans 12:17 and 19 (TLB): “Never pay back evil for evil…never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God, for he has said that he will repay those who deserve it.”

We fear the evildoer will slip into the night, unknown and unpunished. Escape to Fiji and sip mai tais on the beach. Not to worry.  Scripture says, “God will repay,” not God “might repay.” God will execute justice on behalf of truth and fairness. Unlike us, God never gives up on a person. Never. Fix your enemies? That’s God’s job.

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

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In 1882 in New York City, Joseph Richardson owned a narrow strip of land, 5 feet wide and 104 feet long. Next door was a normal-sized lot owned by a man who wanted to erect an apartment building. He offered Richardson $1,000 for his plot. But Richardson built a house—blocking the view! Dubbed the “Spite House”, Richardson spent the last fourteen years of his life in the narrow residence that seemed to fit his narrow state of mind.

Revenge builds a lonely, narrow house, space enough for one person. The lives of its tenants reduced to one goal: make someone miserable. And they do—themselves. No wonder God insists we “keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent” (Hebrews 12:15 MSG).

Read more You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.