Max Lucado: “You Were Made For This Moment”
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It's Live in the Bream with host of Fox News at Night, Shannon Bream. Welcome back to this week's edition of Live in the Bream. We have a favorite guest with us. He's got a brand new book. He's got big news too that I know you're going to want an update on. So with no further ado, bestselling author and pastor, you know him and his gift of encouragement, Max Lucado. Thanks for coming back, Max. Thank you, Shannon. It's a treat to see you. It always is.

Well, we are blessed by it. And I always get such good feedback of people that need hope in this season. You've been doing that through, I still watch your Instagram posts or mini sermons as they are. I know they're very encouraging. You've got a brand new book now. You were made for this moment, courage for today and hope for tomorrow.

I love that it is centered in the story of Esther, which is such an inspiring, encouraging story. I understand you were writing this during COVID. So tell us about the concept, because a lot of people are still very much struggling. They are. They are. You wrote about Esther in your wonderful book. She was one of your characters, correct? Yes.

Yes. Thank you. I mean, I am so encouraged by her, by her bravery, by her obedience and you get into such detail. I love it.

Yeah. Well, I had the opportunity to do so because of the whole book. Yeah. 2020. We all know where we were in January, February and March of 2020. I was actually when I decided to write about Esther, I was in New York City, your neck of the woods, not woods, but your neck of the world. And, you know, I.

I was like everybody, I saw COVID coming, but I thought this couldn't be as bad as they say. And little by little by little, I was there in March of 2020. And I said, man, this is serious. I was scheduled to bring a series at our church on stewardship, Shannon.

And all of a sudden, the idea of talking to our church about managing money and budgeting money and tithing, it just seemed a little tone deaf. And so I thought, I think we need to go a different direction. And I had recalled thinking that Esther is a great speaker.

a powerful story of how to face a crisis, because that was certainly a crisis. And so that's really where the thought began. When COVID began, I went back to the drawing board. And as a church, we began studying through the book of Esther and found that it really was a really timely study for the challenges that we continue to face to this day.

Yeah.

But the fact is when Esther is now plucked from the legions of young women by Xerxes, the king who I think you have such an interesting description of him. This was not a profile encouraged statesman, great kind of guy. But he has this nationwide sort of roundup of trying to find the woman who will be his next queen because of the falling out with his initial queen. And Esther during this time is caught up in this thing.

with her uncle Mordecai advising her along the way. And part of the deal is to hide who she is to go through this process. Tell us about that. I think that for me, that might've been the surprise that had never dawned on me that though Mordecai and Esther end up every bit

deserving as heroes in scripture. They really don't start out that way. They're clandestine in their convictions. They cover up their faith. Like you said, we're in fifth century B.C., Persia. King Xerxes, who's more of a drinker than a thinker, calls upon his queen to dance before his drunk buddies.

And good for you, Queen Vashti, you didn't do it. So he gives her the boot and he needs another queen. And consequently, they have this nationwide star search contest. And Esther is selected, but she is advised by her uncle to keep her ancestry a secret.

And we can only imagine how many laws of the Torah she had to violate to become queen, you know, to sleep with the pagan king, to live with him. But she and her uncle Mordecai keep their faith a secret. The other main character in the story, of course, is Haman, who is an ancient version of Hitler. He's seeking to destroy the Jewish people. He's anti-Semitic to the core. And when

when Mordecai refuses to bow down as instructed to Haman, then

his Jewish identity becomes public knowledge. And he calls out to Esther to take a stand for her faith. And that's when we have that great statement, who knows what since you have been placed in the kingdom for such a time as this. And she makes that courageous decision. If I perish, I perish. There's so many levels to this story, just so many levels. But I think what inspires me the most is that they decided to be public in their faith and

in the midst of a very corrupt culture, a challenging culture, chaotic time, and trusting, even at great personal risk, that God would use them. They did not know if God would extend their lives. I mean, for all they knew, they would die. But they did know God would use them and that they decided to, you know, put their faith on the line.

When it like you do, by the way, you my friend. I mean, I don't know, Shannon. I'm a pastor. You know, people expect me to do so. Yeah, you're the front line, Shannon. I mean, I don't know about that. I do think that we all.

can take ownership of the Esther story because she was, so people understand, she was actually risking her life when she wanted to go to the king and make a plea on behalf of saving the Jewish people. Because in those days to go to the king unbidden, you could potentially be killed on the spot. So when we're

Mordecai, she finally realizes why he is grieving and demonstrating all of this agony. She finds out what's driving it. She gets the message about what's going to happen. And she doesn't immediately say, and this was something I had to relearn from childhood too. I thought immediately she marches into the king and she's ready to go. But the truth is like any of us, she's human. She had fear and hesitation. And she said, have the people fast. I'm going to do the same thing.

And then I'll go. If I perish, I perish. But I love that we see the humanness in her because we all have moments where we think about our own self-preservation or we're fearful. And I think God knows our hearts. But she overcomes that and says, I will be willing in this moment to be that voice to save this entire nation. Most of the.

storybooks about Esther, movies about Esther. They portray that moment that she appeared before King Xerxes as really the turning point, don't they? And well, they should. And no doubt that's the most visibly dramatic moment. I envision her draped in beauty. She must have been a true Hollywood head turner. And I can just see Xerxes dropping his jaw at the side of her and saying, whatever you want up at the half of the kingdom. But you're right. Really, the dramatic moment

is not Esther in her beauty, but it's Esther in her prayer, in her piety. And she fasted and prayed for three days and called upon all the Jewish people to do so. So somebody needs to redo the movie and let the camera follow her into her prayer chamber and put the camera there. She's face on the floor saying, Lord, if you don't help us, we're lost. Yeah.

Because my favorite quote I came across is she could face the king of Persia because she had already faced the king of kings. It's a beautiful thing. So I find so much inspiration in this story because the bad guy Haman here, as you said,

a perfect comparison that he was the Hitler of the day. He wanted to wipe out the entire nation of Israel, all of the Jewish people. And he's caught up in his own schemes, which I love. The justice that's rendered to him that eventually takes him out is what he had planned for Mordecai. There's just so much poetic justice and courage and God...

making the wrongs rights in this story and protecting people and judging people who were schemers and had intended evil, he turns it around. So how do we use this today? Because we know so many people are feeling overwhelmed by their circumstances. We refer to 2020, but listen, 2021 for a lot of people has been just as hard. They're still suffering just as much, whether it's with fear and anxiety financially, they've lost someone they love, they've been sick. They're worried about their children now.

How do we take this story now and find hope in it for 2021? I think a big message of the book of Esther is the message of quiet prayer.

providence or maybe silent sovereignty. The book of Esther is famous, as you well know, as being one of the two books in the Bible in which the name of God is not written, does not appear. And at no point do you really read of any religious activity. You know, there's no visits to the temple. They're not in Jerusalem. They're cut off from their homeland. And yet God is act

John Calvin has a famous statement, though the name of God is not mentioned, the fingerprints of God appear on every page. And they really do. And I think that's where we are, Shannon. You know, most people, our day-to-day world, we don't have very many Red Sea moments or

any raising Lazarus from the dead moments. Most of our days are somewhat tedious. They're comprised of getting the kids to school, getting the deadlines met, getting to bed on time. You know, they're comprised of just living life. And the book of Esther says that God in his quiet providence is organizing all of the events of mankind.

And I think it's also important, especially during a time in which words like pandemic, political division, presidential controversy, questions of justice are so surfacing at the forefront of all of our conversations that we can take hope. We can take confidence in saying, I don't know how God is working, but the story of Esther is just one of dozens in Scripture

that tell me that God is at work behind the scenes, working things out to advance his cause, protect his people, and take care of me. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.

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And I like this quote credited to you talking about the book. It says, the theme of the book of Esther, indeed, the theme of the Bible is that all injustices of the world will be turned on their head. And I think people do feel like they're struggling with that, with divisions, with hurts, with past deep wounds that have to be healed, current wounds that are digging us deeper. This idea, though, that God is aware of injustice and he is acting and he will right those wrongs.

How can that be an encouragement for us too on issues aside from co-operating?

COVID, but issues about racial tension and injustices and hurts and wounds, as I said, within the church, outside the church, just a divided society where so often we are encouraged to look at others and say, there are others, I'm me, we're on two different sides of any particular issue, and to be encouraged to distrust and dislike each other without ever knowing each other.

One of the real challenges of dealing with injustices is the thought that that person who perpetrated that injustice is just going to get off scot-free. That all the brutal dictators, the perpetrators, the child molesters, those who have hurt, those who have marginalized people, that they're somehow just going to get through life.

All the Hamans and the Hitlers, the Stalins, they're just going to, you know, kind of scoot through and live in their fancy mansions and go unpunished. The

The book of Esther says otherwise. And I believe the Bible says otherwise. Now, I think the Bible says vengeance is God says vengeance is mine. I will repay. And people who have been suppressed, people who have been hurt, taken advantage of, bullied, raped, molested. Those people need to know that God's not blind. He's not blind. He's not blind to what the to what they have endured. God's grace is open to everybody.

But God reserves a judgment for people who have hurt his children. And part of healing for people who have been suppressed, enslaved, ignored, battered,

battered and bruised part of that comes in saying okay my good god is on the throne and a judgment is coming sure came for haman the very tool of execution he intended to use with mordecai was used to execute him and uh boy i tell you talk about the tables returned and they were

Yeah. If you're not talking about injustice being righted in that case, that's a perfect example. Okay. The book again is You Were Made for This Moment, Courage for Today and Hope for Tomorrow. We are talking with bestselling author and pastor Max Lucado, who clearly has the gift of encouragement and we are all the beneficiaries of that. Now I want to ask you about a couple of personal things as well. You shared

news recently that you had the discovery of an ascending aortic aneurysm. I think you immediately went on thousands, if not millions of prayer lists around the world. We all believe that you have a great ministry and lots of work that we hope you'll stay here on earth and do for a long time. But could you give us an update?

Thank you. Thank you. And yes, I hope I stay here for a long time, too. I really am at peace. I do believe that all our days on earth were numbered before one of them came to be. And so I I'm genuinely excited about heaven.

I really am. I don't want to leave Earth. I don't. But I am enjoying the excitement of knowing that heaven's getting closer for all of us. And this was one of those reminders to me that that heaven is getting closer to me. So I went in for another physical, a physical about just a regular annual physical. And a part of the testing revealed that the test.

uh, ascending aortic aneurysm. That's a mouthful. I know that part of the aorta that comes out of the top of the heart, uh, before it makes the curve and begins to descend down into the abdomen. Mine is big. Mine has swollen to an unhealthy size. And, uh,

The tests are ongoing right now to determine what needs to be done. But I'm not apparently not quite at the point where surgery is mandated. I am at a point where surgery is considered. But the surgery is the crack open the chest type surgery. And so it's a bit risky itself. And so my doctor is helping me see what we're doing here is weighing the risk.

of the surgery with the possibility of the aneurysm causing trouble. So right now, the doctor said, Max, we have you under surveillance. I said, I thought that was for criminals. So I guess I'm a criminal. So I'm under surveillance and we're going to be running some tests.

Okay, good. Well, please keep us all updated. I know we will all keep you on our lists in the meantime. But again, you are such a model of faith and a reminder to all of us to trust that God does have our days numbered. He knows everything. Nothing is a secret or slips by him. He knows each twist and turn. We're told every hair on our head. And we can take great confidence and peace in that. And I think...

in the midst of anxiety and everything else that we've been struggling with for the last couple of years. And some people for a lifetime that can be exceptionally comforting to see you living out and modeling that for us. So thank you for that blessing of your transparency and encouraging us in the process. Now, here's something I don't know how I did not know about you before is that you were a missionary in Brazil, right?

for several years. Now, when I was an undergrad student at Liberty University, go flames, I did a summer in Brazil. Oh, you did. And I, I mean, I loved it. It really made me grow up very quickly because we, people always say like, oh, were you hanging out in Rio? I'm like, oh no, no. We were hanging out in places with freezing cold showers and spiders the size of my head and, you know, no electricity and,

But the people in the midst of all that were so incredibly warm and welcoming and open to faith and just welcomed us. And we had such an amazing experience. And it made me as a 20-year-old who... I didn't grow up with money. But when you look at the American experience for most people, even in a lower middle-class family to go to Brazil, you're like millionaires to them. I mean...

But there was joy among these people without the materialism and a lot of the things that as a 20-year-old, I thought were important. So-

It was a great wake-up call for me. And then to find out that you spent years there, I'd love to hear a bit of your reflection. Where were you in Brazil? We did Brasilia, Recife, several different cities. We kind of bounced around. I got you. I got you. Yeah, I'm so glad you had that experience. Yeah. I moved there at the age of 27 and moved back to the States at the age of 33. So I was pretty young myself.

My wife and I were a year into marriage. Two of our three daughters were born in Brazil. So we really had a real rooting and grounding experience in Brazil. I moved to Brazil thinking that's where I would spend my life. My father passed away while we were in Brazil. My mother, I needed to be closer to her. And also I started writing books while

while I was in Brazil. So those three reasons all came to bear that we moved back after about five years. I love Brazil. I love it. I love the Brazilians. I love the way they're so patient with gringos like me.

Even after five years, all mine was so bad. I worked hard, but I never could sound like I was a Brazilian. Well, I'm sure it was better than mine. But one of the things that I learned in the process, part of what we did was singing. So we would go into these little towns and take our generator and we would do some music just to gather people so we could meet and talk to them. And we had a couple of girls at school that I was at school with who

who were the daughters of Brazilian missionaries. So they were perfectly fluent in Portuguese. They recorded all of our music for us phonetically. So when we got there and we would do these concerts, we had learned the songs phonetically and people would immediately run up to us afterwards to talk to us and then realize, you know, in two seconds that we couldn't say much more than, "Obrigado," you know. And I might have messed up the words to a song once to say something rather embarrassing, which I knew when the crowd broke into laughter.

But the people were so forgiving, like you said, and great about it. And the one song I remember in Portuguese is Awesome God.

And I will sing it once in a while. And my husband rolls his eyes because he's like, that's the only song you remember in Portuguese. But I'm like, listen, that's all I got. So if you ever want to go back on a trip to Brazil and you need a second rate backup singer, I can go with you and do that. Oh, my goodness. That's so great. I'm so glad you got to experience that. My first experience in Brazil was similar. I spent a summer there and I got hooked.

And that's why I went back. And I did so many dumb things. This is a tiny bit embarrassing, but I think it's funny. I was in charge of our communion service once in our little church. And instead of thanking God for the Holy Supper or the Lord's Supper, I thank God for the Holy Breast. They're just a letter off. Just a letter off. The church cracked up.

They knew I had no idea what I had done. So I didn't even know to be embarrassed until after they told it to me. Okay, so now that you've told that, I'm going to have to tell my embarrassing, just in a way of confession, is that part of what I was singing was, and again, they laughed so I knew I'd gotten something wrong, but it wasn't until later, and the missionary who was doing most of the translating for us told me after the concert that I had essentially sung something about God passing gas. Oh!

So I feel like your story and mine together, I feel equally embarrassed for both of us.

Well, thank you, Lord, for Brazilians and their patience. But you're right. They're the most wonderful people. They're the most wonderful people. Well, I look forward to the day maybe that I can go back there again. Again, we are blessed to be spending time with Max Lucado today. Thank you for your time to talk about this new book. You were made for this moment. Courage for today and hope for tomorrow. It gives you all those things and more. You will be so inspired and you will probably have, if you're struggling, you're going to

just the encouragement you need in a new outlook on where we are and all of God's promises in the midst of that. Max, thank you so much for this. We're going to keep praying for you. Keep us updated. Thank you, Shannon. Thank you. All the very best to you. You too.

From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the Transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech Podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcast.com.