Max Lucado Shares How Struggles with Alcohol and Perfectionism Impacted His Life
Max Lucado is opening up about the secret struggles he dealt with behind closed doors, and how God uses imperfect people to complete His very good and purposeful plans.
In an interview with Fox News, Lucado detailed his experiences.
“I think the heaviest load to carry is the load of trying to appear perfect—this idea that ‘I’ve got to appear like I have it all together,'” Lucado said. “That’s exhausting. It’s exhausting. It’s depleting. And also it keeps us from getting the help and the healing that we need.”
The pressures of keeping up with the weight of the world led Lucado to cope with his pain through alcohol.
“The staff needed me. The pulpit required me. The publisher was counting on me…” his book, “God Never Gives Up on You” recounts. “I began to drink. Not publicly. I was the guy you see at the convenience store who buys the big can of beer, hides it in a sack and presses it against his thigh so no one will see as he hurries out the door.”
Lucado shared that there is a toxicity to people trying to strive for unrealistic goals and expectations that supersede our own human abilities.
“Nobody bats 1,000. And the sooner we can acknowledge that we don’t the healthier we’ll be,” Lucado said.
Lucado’s openness and honesty about his own faith journey and struggles has been resonating with many people for quite awhile now. Recently, Lucado told Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast about his heart-felt, sought-after plea to the Lord to reveal more of Himself in the good and perfect gifts that He has for Him.
“I said, ‘Lord is there any other gift You desire for me?'” Lucado asked. “And I prayed that every morning for two or three weeks, and then one morning early in the morning I began praying in a heavenly language.”
For Lucado to receive his prayer language was unexpected because he had been under the teaching and impression that the gift of praying in tongues had ceased. However, Lucado discovered that this is indeed a critical part of knowing God more intimately.
“We need to remind the church we are a supernatural people,” Lucado said. “We are a people who believes in an unseen god, and so we make that announcement. And then, I think we help people understand the personality of the Spirit.”
As ministers and authors like Lucado share the reality of their testimony, people are able to get a glimpse into who they are now, who they were and how God was the transformative puzzle piece to turn their lives around for the good. Ministers like Greg Locke have also shared their journey from cessationism to walking in a greater depth and purpose with the Holy Spirit. It’s those who are most open and honest about their journeys that we not only can relate to, but who we see the fingerprints of God all over in their lives and ministries. {eoa}
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Abby Trivett is a marketing copywriter and coordinator for Charisma Media.
