When We Can't Handle It

How many times have we heard the phrase "God doesn't give you more than you can handle"? Often it comes from Christians who mean it to be an encouraging word of wisdom in hard times, or when we don't have the words to comfort someone who is struggling.

But when life is truly falling to ruins around you, this statement can feel like a stab in the heart. If God doesn't give me more than I can handle, why am I failing at handling this? My spirit in shambles and my life turned upside-down. There's no way I can fix this.  And you're right. You can't fix it. This notion that God only allows us to go through handle-able troubles is entirely unbiblical and untrue, and is illustrated many times in Scripture!

In one of Paul's letters to the church in Corinth, he says, "For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope, that he will deliver us again." (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)

Paul, one of the main builders of the New Testament church, was "utterly burdened beyond his strength." I may be taking a wild stab at this, but that doesn't sound like he's "handling it" to me. No doubt, planting churches in places that have never experienced Jesus is hard work! No doubt, being essentially wanted and persecuted by the Jewish leaders of faith is draining! But this was where God sent Paul, into this place that made him "despair life itself". That doesn't quite line up with our common, American saying of "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."

We also need to clarify, God sometimes allows hard things. He doesn't cause them. He isn't the creator of evil or cancer or persecution, but He can use them to grow His children in ways that we never would grow otherwise. Notice that Paul says this huge, unmanageable burden "was to make us not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead... On him we have set our hope." The way that God grows us in the midst of these hard things is this: He shows us how to rely not on ourselves, but on Him! It's so easy in American culture to rely on ourselves. We know we should rely on God, but oftentimes, for all intents and purposes, we don't need to. We have money, jobs, security, doctors, clean water, good food, independence, and even a semblance of religious freedom. I say this with compassion to all going through intense heartbreak or hardship... God's allowance of our trials is once of His greatest mercies. How else would we learn to truly understand what it means to have faith in Him? 

We will always find ourselves in situations that are too dire for us to handle by our own power, particularly if we're living a life of radical faith. But this isn't a bad thing, because in those times we have the great privilege to lean heavily on the One who can handle all things. And what's more, we have the opportunity to learn how to lean on Him in all things, be they mountains or valleys.
Through our stepping aside and allowing Him to handle it, He is glorified. Through our leaning on Him, His power is made visible through our stories.