Four years ago, Max Lucado was sitting with a diagnosis that could have ended his life. Doctors had just informed the bestselling author and pastor that he had an ascending aortic aneurysm, an alarming and potentially deadly condition.
“I spiraled,” the 70-year-old Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, told The Christian Post. “The first three or four days after I heard the diagnosis, I’m not proud of the anxiety level I permitted.”
Then came a moment that changed everything. During a time of prayer, Lucado said he received a vision: God’s hand gently wrapped around his aorta.
“It may sound supernatural or mystical,” he said, “but I can’t deny that God gave me that vision. I believe His hand is on it, and it always was, even when I didn’t recognize it.”
The aneurysm, he shared, has grown only slightly since the diagnosis, and today, he’s grounded in a peace that can only come from God, regardless of what the future holds.
“I do not want to leave my family. I do not want to leave my precious wife. But I’m excited to see Jesus whenever that time comes,” he reflected. “I really am at peace. That doesn’t mean I want to leave. I don’t. But I don’t have a bucket list. My best life is after this life. I’m very, very grateful for that blessing.”
That spiritual encounter, an image of God quite literally holding his most vulnerable place, frames Lucado’s latest book,Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life. In his book, the bestselling author confronts one of the most pressing mental health challenges of today: how to manage one’s thoughts biblically in a culture of noise, distraction and despair.
With dozens of books in print, Lucado is one of the most widely read Christian authors of all time. But according to the pastor, Tame Your Thoughts is perhaps his most personal and pastorally urgent work to date.
“Early in my ministry, it dawned on me that what Jesus offers to help us do in the process of discipleship is to change the way we think,” he said. “That’s what discipleship is, learning to think less like the natural self and more like the spiritual self.”
He pointed to Romans 12:2, which reads, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” as a central verse for the book and the spiritual battle he believes every believer faces. The mind, he stressed, is a spiritual arena targeted by Satan himself.
“Satan is the culprit,” he said. “He wants to sow seeds of doubt, anxiety, regret or guilt. He’s a master at messing with our minds.”
Referencing John 13:2, where Satan planted an idea in Judas’ mind to betray Jesus, Lucado said spiritual warfare often starts with a thought. But God, he contended, has given believers the resources to fight back, beginning with the “helmet of salvation” in Ephesians 6, which covers and protects the mind.
“He made our brains,” Lucado said. “He can retrain our brains.”
In his book, the father and grandfather outlines three biblical strategies to help readers navigate common thought problems. First, he advises readers to practice “picky thinking.”
“You don’t have to think about everything you think,” Lucado said. “Just because a thought enters your mind doesn’t mean it deserves your attention.”
Citing 2 Corinthians 10:5, Lucado urged readers to “take every thought captive,” a Greek phrase he says literally evokes marching a prisoner into submission. “We’re meant to confront and reject the thoughts that don’t align with God’s truth,” he said.
Second, he challenges readers to identify “UFOs”: Untruth, false narrative, overreaction.
He referenced the belief, for example, that “I have to have money to be happy.” That untruth can lead to a false narrative: “The more I have, the more I’m worth” and ultimately, to the overreaction of greed, workaholism or financial anxiety.
“Rather than just treating the symptom, we need to go upstream to the untruth,” Lucado said. “That’s where healing begins.”
Finally, Lucado encourages readers to “uproot and replant.” He compared the mind to his childhood backyard, where his job was to clear out thorny weeds called “graspers.” At first, he simply mowed them down, but they came back. Only later did he learn from his father how to use a spade to dig them up by the root.
“Our minds are like that,” he said. “We need to uproot the anxious, critical and destructive thoughts, and then replant truth in their place, using Scripture as the seed.”
Lucado said he prays his latest book serves as a spiritual intervention for a society in crisis, citing statistics that two out of every 10 teenagers have contemplated suicide in recent months, and five out of 10 are dealing with anxiety and depression.
“And adults don’t fare much better,” he said, adding that the church has a role to play in equipping believers to manage their minds through discipleship.
“These three tools are not the only tools,” he said, “but they’re biblical, they’re practical, and they can be applied immediately.”
Lucado also weighed in on the influence that media and entertainment have on the mind, warning that the content one consumes has a direct impact on their worldview and mental health.
“You watch a movie where everyone casually sleeps together before marriage, and that’s planting an untruth,” he said. “That untruth creates a false narrative: ‘No one gets hurt, everything’s fine.’ Then comes the overreaction: ‘I’ll live however I want.’ But that leads to real consequences.”
“You have to guard your mind,” he added. “Don’t think what you consume won’t have consequences.”
Lucado said he wrote Tame Your Thoughts for the person who wakes up in the morning overwhelmed by fear, guilt, regret or simply the noise of life, all emotions he understands firsthand.
“Whether it be feelings of insecurity, whether it be feelings of regret, whether it be feelings of grief, whether it be feelings of the world is out of control, whatever that particular blind spot is for a person, my prayer is that they say, ‘OK, I’ve got these three tools. I’m going to practice picky thinking. I’m going to identify those UFOs, and I’m going to uproot and replant, and I’m going to let God do what He wants to do, and that’s transform me by the renewal of the mind.’”
Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life is now available.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
