When God Whispers Your Name: Discover the Path to Hope in Knowing that God Cares for You

by Max Lucado

Hasn’t God promised the same to us? We sit at the keyboard, willing to play the only song we know, only to discover a new song. A sublime song. And nobody is more surprised than we are when our meager efforts are converted into melodious moments.

It’s a story of a derailed dream. It’s a story of high hopes colliding with harsh realities. Happens to all dreamers. And since all have dreamed, it happens to us all.

Changing direction in life is not tragic. Losing passion in life is. Something happens to us along the way. Convictions to change the world downgrade to commitments to pay the bills. Rather than make a difference, we make a salary. Rather than look forward, we look back. Rather than look outward, we look inward.

His faith made him likable, not detestable.

Where did we get the notion that a good Christian is a solemn Christian? Who started the rumor that the sign of a disciple is a long face? How did we create this idea that the truly gifted are the heavy-hearted?

Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookie in your milk. Take a nap. Say you’re sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again.

Loosen up. Don’t you have some people to hug, rocks to skip, or lips to kiss? Someone needs to laugh at Bugs Bunny; might as well be you. Someday you’re going to learn to paint; might as well be now. Someday you’re going to retire; why not today? Not retire from your job, just retire from your attitude. Honestly, has complaining ever made the day better? Has grumbling ever paid the bills? Has worrying about tomorrow ever changed it? Let someone else run the world for a while. Jesus took time for a party . . . shouldn’t we?

For that reason, a hero could be next door and you wouldn’t know it. The fellow who changes the oil in your car could be one. A hero in coveralls? Maybe. Maybe as he works he prays, asking God to do with the heart of the driver what he does with the engine. The day-care worker where you drop off the kids? Perhaps. Perhaps her morning prayers include the name of each child and the dream that one of them will change the world. Who’s to say God isn’t listening? The parole officer downtown? Could be a hero. She could be the one who challenges the ex-con to challenge the teens to challenge the gangs. I know, I know. These folks don’t fit our image of a hero. They look too, too, . . . well, normal. Give us four stars, titles, and headlines. But something tells me that for every hero in the spotlight, there are dozens in the shadows. They don’t get press. They don’t draw crowds. They don’t even write books! But behind every avalanche is a snowflake. Behind a rock slide is a pebble. An atomic explosion begins with one atom. And a revival can begin with one sermon.

Do heroes know when they are heroic? Rarely.

Our typical response when we read these verses is to think Philip was a special guy. He had access to the Oval Office. He carried a first-century pager that God doesn’t pass out anymore.

“The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them” (Rom. 8:14).

The Holy Spirit is the presence of God in our lives, carrying on the work of Jesus. The Holy Spirit helps us in three directions—inwardly (by granting us the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22–24), upwardly (by praying for us, Rom. 8:26), and outwardly (by pouring God’s love into our hearts, Rom. 5:5).

We learn brevity from Jesus. His greatest sermon can be read in eight minutes (Matt. 5–7). His best-known story can be read in ninety seconds (Luke 15:11–32). He summarized prayer in five phrases (Matt. 6:9–13). He silenced accusers with one challenge (John 8:7). He rescued a soul with one sentence (Luke 23:43). He summarized the Law in three verses (Mark 12:29–31), and he reduced all his teachings to one command (John 15:12).

Pray all the time. If necessary, use words.

Sacrilege is to feel guilt for sins forgiven.

God forgets the past. Im...

Greed I’ve often regretted. Gener...

Never miss a chance to read a ch...

Be doubly kind to the people who bring your food or park your car.

Nails didn’t hold God to a cross. Love did.

You’ll give up on yourself before God will.

Know answered prayer when you see it, and don’t give ...

The right heart with the wrong creed is better than the right creed with the wrong heart.

Sometimes the most godly thing we can do is take a day off.

Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.

You’ll regret opening your mouth. You’ll rarely regret keeping it shut.

To see sin without grace is despair. To see grace without sin is arrogance. To see them in tandem is conversion.

When Jesus went home, he left the front door open.

If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. But since our greatest need was forgiveness, God sent us a Savior.

cul-de-sac.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek his grace. And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest.

Easy for you to say, Max, sitting there in your office with a cricket as your chief irritant. You ought to try living with my wife. Or, You ought to have to cope with my past. Or, You ought to raise my kids. You don’t know how my ex has mistreated me. You don’t have any idea how hard my life has been. And you’re right, I don’t. But I have a very clear idea how miserable your future will be unless you deal with your anger.

Judgment is God’s job. To assume otherwise is to assume God can’t do it.

To forgive someone is to admit our limitations. We’ve been given only one piece of life’s jigsaw puzzle. Only God has the cover of the box. To forgive someone is to display reverence. Forgiveness is not saying the one who hurt you was right. Forgiveness is stating that God is fair and he will do what is right.

I have my faith. It’s all I have. But it’s all I need. I have kept the faith.

Paul leans back against the wall of his cell and smiles. And I lean back against another and stare into the face of a man who has learned that there is more to life than meets the eye. For that’s what faith is. Faith is trusting what the eye can’t see.

Perhaps your childhood memories bring more hurt than inspiration. The voices of your past cursed you, belittled you, ignored you. At the time, you thought such treatment was typical. Now you see it isn’t.

Maybe your past isn’t much to brag about. Maybe you’ve seen raw evil. And now you, like Josiah, have to make a choice. Do you rise above the past and make a difference? Or do you remain controlled by the past and make excuses?

The wizard says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find God. The first will get you to Kansas. The latter will get you to heaven. Take your pick.

Alarms sound in your world as well. Maybe not with bells and horns, but with problems and pain. Their purpose is to signal impending danger. A fit of anger is a red flare. Uncontrolled debt is a flashing light. A guilty conscience is a warning sign indicating trouble within. Icy relationships are posted notices announcing anything from neglect to abuse. You have alarms in your life. When they go off, how do you respond? Be honest, now. Hasn’t there been a time or two when you went outside for a solution when you should have gone inward?

Reminds me of the golfer about to hit his first shot on the first hole. He swung and missed the ball. Swung again and whiffed again. Tried a third time and still hit nothing but air. In frustration he looked at his buddies and judged, “Man, this is a tough course.” Now, he may have been right. The course may have been tough. But that wasn’t the problem. You may be right, as well. Your circumstances may be challenging, but blaming them is not the solution. Nor is neglecting them. Heaven knows you don’t silence life’s alarms by pretending they aren’t screaming. But heaven also knows it’s wise to look in the mirror before you peek out the window.

Allow me to get specific. Our problem is sin. Not finances. Not budgets. Not overcrowded prisons or drug dealers. Our problem is sin. We are in rebellion against our Creator. We are separated from our Father. We are cut off from the source of life. A new president or policy won’t fix that. It can only be solved by God. That’s why the Bible uses drastic terms like conversion, repentance, and lost and found. Society may renovate, but only God re-creates.

(The German word for worry means “to strangle.” The Greek word means “to divide the mind.” Both are accurate. Worry is a noose on the neck and a distraction of the mind, neither of which is befitting for joy.)

Alarms serve a purpose. They signal a problem. Sometimes the problem is out there. More often it’s in here. So before you peek outside, take a good look inside.

I LIKE THE story of the little boy who fell out of bed. When his mom asked him what happened, he answered, “I don’t know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in.”

Imagine you are selecting your food from a cafeteria line. You pick your salad, you choose your entrée, but when you get to the vegetables, you see a pan of something that turns your stomach. “Yuck! What’s that?” you ask, pointing. “Oh, you don’t want to know,” replies a slightly embarrassed server. “Yes, I do.” “Well, if you must. It’s a pan of pre-chewed food.” “What?” “Pre-chewed food. Some people prefer to swallow what others have chewed.” Repulsive? You bet. But widespread. More so than you might imagine. Not with cafeteria food, but with God’s Word.

So with a salute to his courage and a hunger for the truth, I proudly share with you heretofore undiscovered conversations with two men who will answer the question: what does God do when we are in a bind? The first interview is between the Holy Land Press (HLP) and Moses. HLP: Tell us about your conflict with the Egyptians. MOSES: Oh, the Egyptians—big people. Strong fighters. Mean as snakes. HLP: But you got away. MOSES: Not before they got washed away. HLP: You’re talking about the Red Sea conflict. MOSES: You’re right. That was scary. HLP: Tell us what happened. MOSES: Well, the Red Sea was on one side, and the Egyptians were on the other. HLP: So you attacked? MOSES: Are you kidding? With a half-million rock stackers? No, my people were too afraid. They wanted to go back to Egypt. HLP: So you told everyone to retreat? MOSES: Where? Into the water? We didn’t have a boat. We didn’t have anywhere to go. HLP: What did your leaders recommend? MOSES: I didn’t ask them. There wasn’t time. HLP: Then what did you do? MOSES: I told the people to stand still. HLP: You mean, with the enemy coming, you told them not to move? MOSES: Yep. I told the people, “Stand still and you will see the Lord save you.” HLP: Why would you want the people to stand still? MOSES: To get out of God’s way. If you don’t know what to do, it’s best just to sit tight till he does his thing. HLP: That’s odd strategy, don’t you think? MOSES: It is if you are big enough for the battle. But when the battle is...

We are not happy here because we are not at home here. We are not happy here because we are not supposed to be happy here. We are “like foreigners and strangers in this world” (1 Pet. 2:11).

Rest on this earth is a false rest. Beware of those who urge you to find happiness here; you won’t find it. Guard against the false physicians who promise that joy is only a diet away, a marriage away, a job away, or a transfer away. The prophet denounced people like this: “They tried to heal my people’s serious injuries as if they were small wounds. They said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ But really, it is not all right” (Jer. 6:14). And it won’t be all right until we get home.

ONE OF MY favorite childhood memories is greeting my father as he came home from work. My mother, who worked an evening shift at the hospital, would leave the house around three in the afternoon. Dad would arrive home at three-thirty. My brother and I were left alone for that half-hour with strict instructions not to leave the house until Dad arrived. We would take our positions on the couch and watch cartoons, always keeping one ear alert to the driveway. Even the best “Daffy Duck” would be abandoned when we heard his car. I can remember running out to meet Dad and getting swept up in his big (often sweaty) arms. As he carried me toward the house, he’d put his big-brimmed straw hat on my head, and for a moment I’d be a cowboy. We’d sit on the porch as he removed his oily work boots (never allowed in the house). As he took them off I’d pull them on, and for a moment I’d be a wrangler. Then we’d go indoors and open his lunch pail. Any leftover snacks, which he always seemed to have, were for my brother and me to split. It was great. Boots, hats, and snacks. What more could a five-year-old want? But suppose, for a minute, that is all I got. Suppose my dad, rather than coming home, just sent some things home. Boots for me to play in. A hat for me to wear. Snacks for me to eat. Would that be enough? Maybe so, but not for long. Soon the gifts would lose their charm. Soon, if not immediately, I’d ask, “Where’s Dad?” Or consider something worse. Suppose he called me up and said, ...