Review: Max On Life by Max Lucado |

Title: Max On Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions
Author: Max Lucado
Released: April 19, 2011
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Pages/format: 256 (Hardcover)
Genre: Nonfiction, Christian Living
Source: Booksneeze

What do you wonder about? Do hows and whys niggle at your mind? Any wheres and whens keeping you up at night? In more than thirty years–as an author, pastor, husband, and father–Max Lucado has fielded a lot of questions. Questions born of doubt and pain or just plain curiosity. Big questions about life and faith, heaven and hell. Closer-to-home dilemmas about sex, managing money, or raising kids. This book gathers Max’s responses to the most often-asked questions in bite-sized essays with topical and scriptural indexes to help you find your way.

Quick Review: Max On Life provides quick answers to life’s toughest questions which I hope will serve as a launching pad to further research and Bible study.

In-Depth Review:

Max On Life consists of 172 questions that Max has fielded over the years and answers which are sorted in seven categories–Hope (God, Grace, and “Why am I here”?), Hurt (Conflicts Calamities, and “Why me?”), Help (Prayer, Scripture, and “Why church?”), Him/Her (Sex, Romance, and “Any chance of a second chance?”), Home (Diapers, Disagreements, and “Any hope for prodigals?”), Have/Have-Nots (Work, Money, and “Where’s the lifeline?”), and Hereafter (Cemeteries, Heaven, Hell, and “Who goes where?”) There is also an addendum adapted from Lucado’s presentation at Jerry Jenkins’ Christian Writers Guild Conference about––you guessed it––writing.

Here’s a quick sample of some of the questions asked in Max On Life:

#25 Yesterday I applied for a job that seemed to be God’s plan for me. Today I’m wondering whether an internship abroad might be His plan instead. How do I know which is the right thing to do? {Page 30}

#59 Does God allow war? If so, how do we recognize His command to love our enemies? {Page 71}

#88 What is the purpose of worship? It doesn’t seem that God would need us to sing to Him. {Page 113}

#121 My job requires lots of overtime, so I can’t attend many of my kids’ school activities. My wife worries about this a lot. Could this have a negative effect on our kids? Or on my relationship with them? {Page 162}

#159 One of my high school friends believes in purgatory. She light candles and prays that her dead relatives will get to heaven. Can we pray for the dead to be saved? Does purgatory really exist? {Page 211}

Max On Life is classic Max Lucado––quick and uplifting. The answers to each question span no more than a page-and-a-half and give simplified answers to life’s biggest questions. The answers certainly aren’t comprehensive (they’re not meant to be), but they serve as a good reference or starting point for people who want to know more.

Max On Life is what I would call “theology light”––that is, sound theology presented in its simplest, gentlest form–perfect for the new Christian or interested unbeliever, but mere morsels to the biblically educated disciple. This isn’t a bad thing, but those kinds of answers will only take you so far, which is why I think this book is most useful as a launching pad to further research and Bible study. Don’t get me wrong, Max’s answers are by no means shallow, but it’s just impossible to give truly comprehensive answers to such tough questions in a few short paragraphs.

Of course, the whole way through the pages I was eager to get to the end––the addendum cleverly entitled “The Write Stuff.” It was an excellent piece, but I had been hoping for something a little bit longer. Like everything Max writes, it was quick–four pages to be precise.

Max On Life is a great reference to have on the shelf. It gives practical answers to common questions and makes a great gift to the recent convert. Lucado fans are sure to love it.

About Max Lucado:

Max Lucado is a New York Times bestselling author of over fifty books and the pastor of the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas. He and his wife, Denalyn, have three grown daughters–Jenna, Andrea, and Sara; one son-in-law, Brett; and one sweet but lazy golden retriever, Molly.