"God won't give you more than you can handle."I'm tired of hearing that. Aren't you?
Don't get me wrong. Well-meaning, believing, folks say this to people who are struggling under some weight or difficulty in an effort to help them cope. You've probably said it. I know I have. We say it so much it becomes trite, like a greeting card message. Our goal is to diminish the challenge, build up the person, and in the process lay out a path to overcoming the trial or difficulty. It's the equivalent of saying: “YOU can do it because God has measured this trial and found your strength just barely adequate. You are only being stretched and challenged right now. That’s all."
The Truth
What's the truth? As I have become convinced of it, when God allows trials into our lives, He often gives us more than we can handle. Most of us need only look around to find the evidence of this: the family member struggling under the crushing weight of a medical diagnosis; the friend challenged by financial ruin; the young child caught in the grips of his parents' contentious divorce.
Can we honestly say that no problem is too great for us to handle?
The Good News
This is the good news! When we realize that there will be problems too great for us to deal with on our own, then and only then are we brought to the point of utter dependence upon God's grace, mercy, love, and power to sustain us in the face of these pressures and difficulties-- and that’s precisely what He wants from us! Cease the struggling, the striving, the restless seeking for an answer or solution . . . and trust Him. His “grace is sufficient.” St. Paul would say this is when we can “boast gladly” of our weakness, so that Christ’s power “may dwell” with us. (2 Cor. 12: 9) We have access to a power source that will never be found lacking!
We, our friends, our school parents and our students need to hear this message: that their true power comes not from their own struggling, but from Christ. YES, we must keep living and working. We have to do our part. But, while we push on through the difficulties, our internal condition must be one of peace and the absence of struggle or fear because of the confidence that comes from knowing Christ’s power is with us.
Doesn't that sound like fertile ground for facing the different challenges that might come into our lives? Saying that God won't give us more than we can handle is a lie that is poisonous to the kind of true faith that can actually help us overcome the most difficult problems we'll face.
Remember: The truth is that God loves each and every one of us, and He therefore provides us with His grace to endure even the most crushing blows. Let's share this truth!
