More Than You Can Handle

This week, it is my hope to debunk a Christian fable that is often quoted when we experience difficulties in life. This fable has a lot of different versions, but they all basically boil down to this: "God will never give you more than you can handle.”I suspect we have all been told that at some point in our lives. I suspect most of us have told someone else that when they were going through a difficulty. The truth is, I've probably preached it before.

But it simply is not true. God often allows us to face more than we can handle. But it's not because He's cruel or heartless. It's so we'll stop trying to live life on our own strength and learn to depend on His! The idea that God won't give us more than we can handle might have originated from the words the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
 Notice this verse doesn't say anything about God never giving us more than we can handle. It fact, it is not about circumstances at all, but temptations.


Read Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, and you will discover that he readily admits that he experienced situations that he couldn't handle: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, FAR BEYOND OUR ABILITY TO ENDURE (emphasis mine), so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,”


You see it, don't you? This week we are going to debunk the myth that "God will never give you more than you can handle" and hopefully replace it with the truth: "God will never give you more than He can handle." The difference is more than schematics. It is an entirely different paradigm of how you face life.