Pastor Max Lucado Reveals His Personal Plan to Tame Thoughts and Restore God-Given Peace (EXCLUSIVE)

Beloved pastor and bestselling author Max Lucado has spent decades guiding readers toward a deeper faith and a closer walk with God. Now, at age 70, he’s releasing one of his most personal and practical books yet, Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Restore Your Peace. Drawing from years of ministry experience, biblical truths and his own personal struggles, Lucado offers readers a path to conquering toxic thinking patterns and embracing a life influenced by God’s truth and goodness.

In Tame Your Thoughts, Lucado shares powerful, Scripture-based tools for managing the thoughts that can derail our peace and joy. Whether it’s battling guilt, quieting anxiety, or learning to replace lies with truth, Lucado’s message is one of hope, grace, and practical steps anyone can begin using right away. In this candid Q&A with Woman’s World, he opens up about his own battles with his thoughts, the Scriptures that shaped his writing process, and how we can all find strength in God’s promises. Read on for Lucado’s words of wisdom.

Woman’s World: What inspired you to write this book now?

Max Lucado: I’m at that point in my life where I find myself living with the reality that I’m getting close to the end of my ministry, I’m 70 years old. I’m in good health, so I’m not morbid about it, but I am realistic. I’ve been thinking, Okay, while I can still write and think clearly, I have just two or three more things I want to make sure I address. One of those is managing thoughts.

The Bible has so much to say about this, and I’ve seen how mismanaged thoughts can result in a mismanaged life. Over decades in pastoral work, the Lord has given me tools I’ve seen work in my life and in the lives of others. I wanted to capture these three tools in a manuscript and apply them to different thought patterns that can be troublesome or even toxic. That’s why I wrote the book — and why we landed on the title Tame Your Thoughts. My hope is that people really can learn to do just that.

WW: Was there a specific Scripture you held onto throughout the writing process?

Lucado: There are two or three, but I’ll share one I’ve always cherished and one that was new for me. The one I’ve always loved is from 2 Corinthians 10: Take every thought captive. This idea that we can take our thoughts captive is new to some people. Many assume that if a thought enters their mind, it deserves free reign — but you don’t have to give it that power. Being a disciple means filtering out the negative or unhealthy thoughts and cultivating godly ones. That’s one of my tools: Practice Picky Thinking.

The new insight for me came from Ephesians 6, where Paul talks about the armor of God. He says to put on the helmet of salvation. What does a helmet protect if not our minds? At salvation, we receive God’s protective covering over our thoughts. That means we’re never battling toxic thoughts alone. Therapists and counselors are wonderful, but only God can provide supernatural help. People who have struggled with negative thoughts for years need to know: God will help you. That helmet won’t mean you never face harmful thoughts again, but you’ll never face them without His help.

WW: How do you suggest we take our thoughts captive while also being honest about our real feelings and thoughts — like with anxiety and depression? How do we balance knowing what God can do for us, but also using therapy or medicine?

Lucado: The fact that you have a desire to take thoughts captive that does not imply that you hide those thoughts. We’re not talking about suppression. We’re talking about healthy expression. There are so many times in which it’s not enough just to say, “Okay, I want to take that thought captive.” We need someone. We need help. We may talk to a friend, we may go to a therapist or we may need some medicinal support to help us.

For much of my life, I’ve required some sleep assistance because that’s been a lifelong challenge of mine. Under the care of a respected, trustworthy therapist or physician, that is absolutely okay. Many people could benefit from some practical tools, and that’s what I tried to capture in this book. The minute you close the book, you can begin putting these tools to work, and all of us could benefit from that.

WW: A lot of people feel guilty about thoughts that they feel like they can’t take captive. What would you say to help them address the tension that they feel between condemnation for those thoughts and a healthy conviction from the Holy Spirit?

Lucado: Guilt is the Muhammad Ali of all of our emotions. It comes at us with both fists and it beats us up. The reason that we battle guilt is because we’re guilty. That’s it. We’ve screwed up and we’ve done things that we didn’t want to do, and we know we shouldn’t do. This is true for non-Christians and Christians. Now, the Bible talks about two types of guilt. One leads to change and a better person. The other leads to shame and a distraught person.

Guilt that leads to change is good for us. This kind of guilt says, “You know, I did bad, but I’m not bad.” Shame says, “I did bad, and I am bad at my core.”

So, what we have to understand is that we’ve all screwed up. However, we can uproot these thoughts of guilt, and replace them with thoughts of grace. One of my tools is: Uproot and replant. We can uproot those. In the Christian life, we call this confession. We confess our sins. The Scripture says we confess to God, and then often we need to confess to someone else. Then, we replant with Scripture. Because the Scripture is the sword of the Spirit. It’s the weapon that God uses to help us to deal with these thoughts.

There’s so many passages about forgiveness and grace. The one that always comes to my mind is Romans 8:1, “For there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” So when I’m dealing with guilt, I can interrupt it before it becomes shame by quoting this verse.

The truth is God forgives sinners, and that leads to a good narrative. I am a sinner, but I’m saved by grace. I can be at peace with God and peace with others because I’m a forgiven person.

WW: Your church, Oak Hills in San Antonio helped serve your community after the Texas floods. How can churches be a source of spiritual encouragement and also practical support during these times of natural disasters like this?

Lucado: We’re seeing natural disasters everywhere, it seems. I mean, if wildfires in California, the hurricanes on the East Coast, the tornadoes in the Midwest, the heat wave in the Northeast. I don’t have explanations. The practical response is boots on the ground. Our church has taken on the task of helping people clean up their houses, and we have a whole team where we purchase special equipment to go into these flooded houses.

But I posted a letter on my website basically about how to pray when we’re in a tough time. First, we lament. It’s okay to lament, to complain to God, but then, we lean into our convictions and we lift up our supplications.

So I wanted to give people a practical way to pray during a time like this. We did have a special prayer service, and that meant a lot to people. We’re devastated. We’re just a person or two removed from all these heartbreaking stories.

WW: For those who aren’t directly impacted, how can we be of support?

Lucado: Any financial gift can be put to use. You know the reputable organizations like Red Cross or Salvation Army or our church — we have a special fund set up for it. It’s not hard to find places where you can give financially and just help people out during a time like this. We’re very grateful for those who have the skill set and who have traveled to help. We had a guy to our church last weekend who came in from South Carolina. He’s retired, and whenever there’s a natural disaster, he fills up his pickup full of tools. He left at 2am and got here at about 7pm. He drove all the way from South Carolina to South Texas, and was going to get to work. Many of us don’t have that skill set, but we can pray and we can give.

Where to Find Tame Your Thoughts

Max Lucado’s Tame Your Thoughts is available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and ChristianBook.com. You can follow Max for daily encouragement on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @MaxLucado, or visit MaxLucado.com for devotionals, sermons, and more resources to help you live with a renewed mind.