As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save many people alive. —Genesis 50:20

According to Thomas Nelson, more than 100 million people have found comfort with the words of author and pastor Max Lucado. By looking at the seemingly endless list of book titles penned by the renowned author, you would think that Lucado would have run out of ideas by now, but you would be wrong.

Lucado has the uncanny ability to speak the truth without sugar-coating it, yet still make the reader feel cared for. It’s a gift few authors and speakers possess. The message is clear with his new book as well – You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times. 

In the book, Lucado says the things that you don’t want to hear (“This will be hard.” “This will be painful.” “This won’t be over in a day.”) and balances them out with one simple line – “You’ll Get Through This.”

Using the biblical story of Joseph (you know, the Technicolor Dreamcoat guy) as a guide, Lucado dares to compare our very modern circumstances with those that faced Joseph oh-so-long ago. In his introduction to the book, Lucado writes: 

“Joseph’s story got worse before it got better. Abandonment let to enslavement, entrapment, and imprisonment. He was sucker-punched. Sold out. Mistreated. People made promises only to break them. Offered gifts only to take them. If hurt is a swampland, then Joseph was sentenced to a life of hard labor in the Everglades.” 

Does any of that sound familiar to what you are going through?

In this book, Lucado will take the reader on a journey through Joseph’s lifetime and show how he endured it all without giving up or letting bitterness take over. A pure example of what Satan has intended to be evil, God is able to redeem it for good.

Many of us want to believe that when we find ourselves in a bind, God will make everything better in an instant. However, God never promised in His Word that we wouldn’t ever have to go through trials, nor that when we went through them that they’d be a breeze. 

“It wasn’t for Joseph – tossed in a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, wrongfully imprisoned, forgotten and dismissed – but his Old Testament story is in the Bible for this reason: to teach us to trust God to trump evil,” says Lucado in a recent press release for the book.

One might be skeptical of a newer author writing about such things, but You’ll Get Through This marks Lucado’s 30th book title in more than 25 years of publishing, so he has some experience to back this subject matter up. The Library Journal apparently agrees, and has offered this statement to be printed on the inside flap of the book: 

“Lucado acknowledges the depth of sorrow and trouble in modern life and offers realistic hope in a faith in God, even when such hope is hard to find.”

Lucado is also a practical man. For this book, he offers a checklist of seven points that he calls seven biblical pathways to survival. Intriguing chapter titles include: “Alone but Not All Alone,” “Stupid Won’t Fix Stupid” and “Is God Good When Life Isn’t?”

1. Hear and heed your destiny: God has a specific calling regardless of your crisis
2. Make God’s presence your passion: Soak up His grace like a sponge soaks up water.
3. Do what pleases God: You will never go wrong doing what is right.
4. Let God train you: Allow God to finish His work.
5. Develop an attitude of gratitude: Gratitude gets us through the hard stuff.
6. Begin the process of forgiveness: Anger gives ground to the devil. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room.
7. Make a plan: Ask God to give you an index card-sized plan: two or three steps you can take today.