Book Club Questions for You'll Get Through This

1.Lucado opens by acknowledging that life sometimes throws us into deep pits — seasons of pain, loss, or despair that feel inescapable. What pit, large or small, are you personally carrying into this study? You don't have to share details, but try to name it honestly to yourself.

2.The book's central promise comes from Genesis 50:20: 'You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.' Why do you think Lucado chose Joseph's story, of all the Bible's stories, to carry this message? What is it about Joseph's particular suffering that makes him such a compelling guide?

3.Lucado writes with the conviction that God doesn't promise that getting through trials will be quick or painless, but he does promise to use our mess for good. How does that distinction — between a promise of ease and a promise of redemption — sit with you? Does it feel like enough?

1.Genesis 37 describes Joseph being thrown into a pit by his own brothers. Lucado emphasizes that the betrayal came from family — the people closest to him. Why does betrayal by insiders cut so much deeper than harm from strangers?

2.Lucado notes that the pit was empty — no water in it (Genesis 37:24). He reflects on what it feels like to be in an empty place, drained of resources, comfort, and hope. Describe a time when you felt emotionally, spiritually, or circumstantially 'empty.' What was that like?

3.Joseph's brothers sat down to eat a meal right after throwing him in (Genesis 37:25). Lucado uses this detail to highlight the callousness of those who harm us and then carry on with their lives as if nothing happened. How do you process it when the person who hurt you seems unbothered by what they did?

1.Genesis 39 repeats the phrase 'the LORD was with Joseph' four times. Lucado dwells on this repetition. Why do you think the biblical author felt the need to say it so many times? What does that repetition do for a reader — or for Joseph — in a moment of crisis?

2.Joseph ends up in Potiphar's house — miles from home, among strangers, with no power over his own life. Lucado uses this to reflect on what it means to flourish in an environment you did not choose. Where are you in an environment or situation you did not choose? What would it mean to 'flourish' there?

3.Lucado writes about the loneliness of suffering — the way pain can make you feel utterly unseen and unknown, even when surrounded by people. When have you felt most alone, not necessarily because of physical isolation, but because no one seemed to truly understand what you were going through?

1.Potiphar's wife pursues Joseph persistently. Lucado notes that temptation rarely comes just once — it keeps returning, wearing us down. Where in your own life do you feel the exhaustion of resisting something that keeps coming back?

2.Joseph's response to temptation is striking: 'How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?' (Genesis 39:9). He frames the issue not primarily as loyalty to Potiphar, but as faithfulness to God. How does keeping God in view — rather than just keeping rules — change the way we resist temptation?

3.Joseph does the right thing and ends up in prison for it. Lucado is honest about this painful irony: faithfulness does not always produce immediate reward. Have you ever done the right thing and suffered for it? How did that shape your faith?

1.Lucado draws on Philippians 4:8 — the call to think about whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable — to argue that managing our thought life is a spiritual discipline, not just a psychological technique. Do you think of what you dwell on as a matter of faithfulness? Why or why not?

2.In prison, Joseph encounters the cupbearer and the baker, interprets their dreams, and asks the cupbearer to remember him. This is a small act of hope in a hopeless place. Lucado suggests that choosing to engage, serve, and hope — rather than withdrawing — is itself a form of mental and spiritual health. Where are you tempted to withdraw or disengage in your current season?

3.Lucado warns against what he calls the 'cemetery of thinking' — rehearsing past wounds, nursing bitterness, and replaying betrayals until they define us. What thoughts do you find yourself returning to again and again when you are hurting? Are they life-giving or life-draining?

1.Genesis 40:23 says simply: 'Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.' Two words: he forgot. Lucado calls this one of the most painful sentences in the Bible. Why does being forgotten hurt so profoundly — perhaps more than being actively hurt?

2.Joseph waited two full years after the cupbearer's release before anything changed. Lucado reflects on what it is like to be in a season where you pray, you trust, you wait — and the calendar pages just keep turning. What is your relationship with waiting? Does it feel like faithfulness or like foolishness?

3.Lucado distinguishes between disappointment in circumstances and disappointment in God. Have you ever felt genuinely disappointed in God — not just in your situation, but in him? How did you handle that honestly?

1.Pharaoh's dream and its interpretation by Joseph set off a chain of events that Joseph could never have orchestrated. Lucado highlights the sheer improbability of what happens — a forgotten prisoner summoned to advise the most powerful man on earth. When have you seen something improbable happen in your own life that only God could have arranged?

2.When Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dream, he immediately gives credit to God: 'It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer' (Genesis 41:16). Why is that kind of humility — 'not in me' — both rare and important? How does success and recognition tempt us to take credit for what God has done?

3.Lucado argues that God was fighting for Joseph even during the years in prison — positioning, preparing, and arranging circumstances. Looking back at a hard season in your past, where do you see evidence that God was fighting for you even when you felt helpless?

1.Joseph's brothers arrive in Egypt not knowing it is Joseph they are speaking to. Lucado reflects on what it must have felt like for Joseph to see them — the people who threw him in the pit, who sold him for twenty pieces of silver. What emotions do you imagine Joseph felt in that moment?

2.Hebrews 12:15 warns about a 'root of bitterness' that grows up and defiles many. Lucado describes bitterness not as an emotion but as a decision — a choice to keep reopening a wound rather than allowing it to heal. Do you agree that bitterness is a choice? Why or why not?

3.Lucado distinguishes between righteous anger (acknowledging real wrong) and corrosive bitterness (letting that wrong define and consume us). Where is that line for you? How do you know when you've crossed from honest grief into destructive bitterness?

1.Genesis 45 contains one of the most emotionally charged moments in the Bible: Joseph revealing himself to his brothers with the words, 'I am Joseph.' Lucado dwells on the mixture of emotions — shock, fear, relief, grief — in that room. What do you imagine it felt like to be one of the brothers in that moment?

2.Joseph immediately reframes the story: 'God sent me before you to preserve life' (Genesis 45:5). He doesn't deny the brothers' guilt, but he places the whole narrative in a larger frame of divine purpose. How do you feel about that kind of reframing of your own painful story? Does it feel liberating, or does it feel like it lets people off the hook too easily?

3.Ecclesiastes 3 says there is a time for everything — a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. How does that rhythmic view of life — seasons, not just single moments — change the way you endure a season of weeping or mourning?

1.After Jacob's death, the brothers panic: 'What if Joseph still hates us?' (Genesis 50:15). Lucado notes that forgiveness can be so complete and so unexpected that the person forgiven can barely believe it. Have you ever found it hard to accept forgiveness — from God or from another person? What made it difficult?

2.Joseph weeps when his brothers grovel before him (Genesis 50:17). Lucado interprets this not as weakness but as the overflow of a man whose heart has been genuinely transformed. What does Joseph's emotional response tell us about the relationship between forgiveness and grief?

3.Genesis 50:20 — 'You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good' — is the theological summit of the entire book. Lucado calls it the grammar of grace. What would it mean for you to say a version of Genesis 50:20 over your own story? Is there a harm done to you that you are beginning to see God redeeming?

1.Lucado's phrase 'God's got this' is not a bumper-sticker dismissal of pain — he earns it across the whole of Joseph's story. After everything you've read, what gives you confidence (or not) that God actually 'has' your situation? What evidence from Joseph's story speaks most directly to you?

2.Isaiah 46:9–10 has God declaring: 'I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning.' Lucado leans on God's sovereignty as the bedrock of his argument. How does God's knowledge of the end from the beginning change the way you relate to a chapter of your life that feels unresolved and chaotic?

3.Lucado distinguishes between a God who merely reacts to evil (cleaning up messes after the fact) and a God who governs over evil, using even the worst of it for his purposes. Which picture of God do you functionally believe in most days? Which would you like to believe in?

1.The title of the book is also its central promise. As you reach the final chapter, how has your relationship to that promise — 'You'll get through this' — changed from when you began? Do you believe it more? Differently? With more nuance?

2.Romans 8:37–39 declares that nothing — 'neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future' — can separate us from the love of God. Lucado treats this as the ultimate guarantee. Which of those 'neithers' speaks most directly to your current fear?

3.Lucado closes by pointing forward — not just to personal resolution of current trials, but to the new creation of Revelation 21, where God wipes every tear and makes all things new. How does the eschatological horizon (the ultimate future) change the way you endure present suffering?

1.Which chapter or week of this study impacted you most deeply, and why? What specific idea, story, or quote from that chapter has stayed with you?

2.At the beginning of the study, you were invited to name the 'pit' you were in. Looking back now, how has your perspective on that situation shifted — even if the circumstances themselves haven't changed?

3.Lucado traces a clear arc in Joseph's story: pit → slavery → prison → palace. Looking back at your own life, can you trace a similar arc — even an incomplete one — where suffering gave way to unexpected grace or growth?