Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado

First published: 2005

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Guidebook; handbook for living

Core issue(s): Daily living; faith; guidance; self-knowledge; service

Overview

The premise behind minister and Christian writer Max Lucado’s Cure for the Common Life is that all people have what he calls a “sweet spot,” a unique service for God that they were created to fulfill. More particularly, Lucado defines this spot as the point at which an individual’s personal strengths and successes converge with glorifying God and everyday life.

In the first section of the book, “Use Your Uniqueness,” Lucado sets about helping readers understand that each of us was crafted by a master designer who prepackages his designs, wiring us in a particular way so that we can fulfill our individual purpose. Introducing a concept he calls “unpacking our bags,” Lucado encourages us to examine our own skills and predispositions and those moments when we knew we were performing well (when, he explains, we were in “the zone”) to discover exactly how it is that each of us is packed. Lucado attacks the common secular concept that we can be anything we want to be and replaces it with a Scripture-based mandate to first seek the maker so that we can then learn who it is we were uniquely crafted to be. Unpacking our bags is important spiritual work, Lucado asserts, because strengths and interests visible in even our youngest childhood memories suggest to us who we were designed to be. One boy’s proclivity with model airplanes, for example, and another boy’s love of art point to God-designed penchants for particular fields of interest.

Incorporating Scripture, exegesis, and everyday examples, the first section of Cure ultimately underscores the value of all work. The point is not, according to Lucado, to do what the secular world defines as valuable work but to discover our irrepressible passions to pursue what God intended for us to pursue. Despite secular claims to the contrary, the pursuit of financial gain or prestige will not lead us to personal joy; in fact, Lucado argues, such pursuits will lead us away from our true selves.

So that we will not lose our way but find it, Lucado has appended a version of the System for Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA) technology, an assessment tool used by People Management International that guides users through an examination of their STORY (strengths, topics, optimal conditions, relationships, and the Yes! factor, those times when we have consciously felt God’s pleasure).

In the second section, “To Make a Big Deal Out of God,” Lucado focuses on the reason he feels we should make such a discovery. This he calls the “why” of our sweet spot. When we know who we are, who crafted us, and what we were shaped to do, then we can discover why we were thus shaped. We come to know who we are, says Lucado, to be fully the expression of Christ that God designed us to be. If, according to Lucado, we chase after financial gain or fame, or if we are afraid of stepping out of our comfort zones into a new life, we risk missing our own purpose, thereby wasting our God-given talents. Are we here to glorify ourselves or God? Lucado asks. Because we are designed to glorify God in the unique way that he crafted us to do, Lucado insists, our work is immensely valuable because it is God’s work. We are not designed to be the answer to every social evil, Lucado cautions; neither are we given an unimportant role. When our spiritual gifts meet with our God-given mission, we feel our God-centered worth. When this happens, Lucado says, we worship God, and when that happens, all moments of our daily life are moments of worship.

The main thrust of section three, “Every Day of Your Life,” is the “when” of our sweet spot. The work we do glorifies God the instant we recognize that ultimately it is God for whom we work. By seeing this reality, Lucado argues, we remember that it is God who confirms the work of our hands, regardless of who signs the paycheck. Thankfully, Lucado adds, a grinding nine-to-five, dead-end job that we simply cannot escape because of poor choices, financial responsibility, or through no evil of our own can still be our sweet spot. For this to happen, Lucado suggests, we must remember that God is always with us, that all work, even small deeds, if surrendered to our Lord, glorify him. Thus, even when we do jobs that we simply must perform, such as cleaning bathrooms and changing diapers, tasks that perhaps are no one’s sweet spot, we glorify God.

Christian Themes

Lucado’s Cure for the Common Life is a daily living guidebook that encourages us to study our everyday lives for practical answers to our employment questions. By completing the STORY assessment, Lucado claims, we will see the areas in our life where satisfaction and success meet.

Ultimately, though, Lucado’s text is about faith. As Scripture suggests, most things in life come down to this one issue. Believing the promises of God lies at the heart of this guidebook. At one point, both Abraham and Sarah laughed at the outrageous promise of God. What about the stuttering murderer Moses? Could he believe his call? Lucado’s book asks us a similar question. Do we believe the radical claims of such Scripture as Psalm 139? Does our God know us that intimately? How about the first chapter of Ephesians? Did God really pick us, imperfect as we are, and create what Lucado defines as a sweet spot for each of us? Perhaps some of us will believe that God designed this thing Lucado calls a sweet spot for each of us that will reveal a part of his glory. Lucado’s book calls us beyond merely believing in God to believing God, to trusting him, to surrendering all that matters to his care.

At its core, Lucado’s guidebook asks us the really hard questions of Christian surrender and faith. Will we fall into the secular sickness of disbelief, doubt, and depression? Or will we seek a cure? Do we trust God not only with our souls in the afterlife but also with our everyday lives in the here and now? Do we trust his gifts, his guidance? What about our hopes for our children? Lucado asks. Do we trust God to give our children sweet spots? Do we believe in the power of the Resurrection in our everyday life? Like the Israelites of long ago, we question whether God will make good on his promise to guide us to a sweet spot. Can our Lord transform the mundane tasks of a mundane job into the stuff of miracles? Reading Lucado’s chapter titles one after the other leads us to Lucado’s answer to that question of faith: “Use your uniquesness to make a big deal out of God every day of your life.” If we do, Lucado affirms, we will live in a sweet spot.

Sources for Further Study

Lawrence, Brother. The Practice of the Presence of God. Translated by John J. Delaney. New York: Doubleday, 1977. This work, available in many editions, is one of a handful of classic devotional works that reveal the transforming power of the Resurrection in our everyday lives.

Lucado, Max. It’s Not About Me. Nashville, Tenn.: Integrity, 2005. A powerful complementary text to Cure for the Common Life because both deal with what seems a contradiction: In the secular world, each Christian has a role to play, but life is not about the individual.

Moore, Beth. Believing God. Nashville, Tenn.: Life Way Press, 2002. A text that, like Lucado’s, calls people to the radical faith of stepping beyond merely believing in God to believing him.

Publishers Weekly. Review of Cure for the Common Life. 252, no. 40 (October 10, 2005): 57. Review of the work that notes the author’s traditionally evangelical yet easy-to-read style.

Warren, Rick. The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2002. Warren’s text defines the five purposes for existing and makes the claim that people are uniquely shaped for serving God. Like Lucado’s STORY, Warren’s SHAPE is an assessment tool for discovering God’s purpose for one’s life.