People are often telling me, "God won't give you more than you can bear," or when someone is experiencing difficulty in their lives, we often say to them, “Don’t worry, God won’t give you any more than you can handle.” But the truth of the matter is ....
Yes, God Will Give You More Than You Can Handle
I have been writing and writing in journals for so many years and when I have those random moments in which I look back through them I often read, “God, I can’t handle this anymore. I don’t know what to do ... I give up, I quit, if it's your will, why me, why can't it just be over, etc." Over the years circumstances in my life have been nothing short of overwhelming, everything crumbling, and my world literally fell apart within 365 days year after year after year for about 4 years straight and counting. Real talk, it has been so many days when people have come alongside me and tried to reassure me by saying, “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” & the first thought was to punch them in the face all while saying "are you serious? HE sees all this pain I am carrying yet I continue to endure more ... so does he think I'm built Ford tough?" 😕 When we are down and out and feeling discouraged, having a bad day, heartbroken, missing a loved one, etc; hearing those words don't mean SHIT and can cause us to feel like we aren't measuring up. It causes us to ask, “why can’t I handle it?”
Truth be told, God never told not nann (yes NOT NAAN) one of us that HE wouldn't give us more than we can handle. A few ugly truths are this:
1. There will be times in life when you will feel like you are drowning.
2. There is no one to help you.
3. IT. WILL. HURT. LIKE. HELL ❗❗❗
Suffering doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It doesn't send a text message or put a reminder on our calendars. It may come slowly or unknown and often unseen and with a vengeance, but it doesn’t ask permission, and it doesn’t care about convenience, feelings, or fucks given for that matter. There’s never a good time for your life to be shattered. Trials come in all shapes and sizes, but they don’t come to show how much we can take or how we have it all together. Mind-boggling suffering will come our way because we live in a crippled world with damaged souls (people). And when it comes, let’s be clear that by no means whatsoever that we have what it takes to handle it. God will truly give us more than we can handle—but not more than HE can! Even though the words are meant for reassurance they can often serve as discouragement. Sometimes it can even tempt us to ignore our suffering and pretend it’s not there. It can lead us to believe the lie that we can do it ourselves; that we can handle it and the truth of the matter is WE CAN NOT! We stumble so much because we fail to recognize that sometimes we can’t make it on our own.
The verse most often quoted to support this is, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10:13) "Paul pointed out that we always have a choice: engage in sin or run from it. The promise is that God will always provide a way for us to run from it. Let’s be clear: Paul was talking about temptation, not suffering."
The verse most often quoted to support this is, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10:13) "Paul pointed out that we always have a choice: engage in sin or run from it. The promise is that God will always provide a way for us to run from it. Let’s be clear: Paul was talking about temptation, not suffering."
“This is too much for me!” A forever kind of thought. Those same words I have written over and over in many of my journals, even still till this' very day! Even Jesus has cried out, Matthew 26:38 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” What I am learning in this lifetime and from my past time is it’s OK to feel like we can’t handle it, like we are going to give up. We can cry out, our souls can be empty, and there will be bad days. I believe that the reality is, once we are able to come to terms with who and what we are; and become aware that life will indeed give us more than we can handle, we find an assurance (BLESSED): God is faithful to meet us in the mess and in the pain. Makes perfect sense why they always tell us "cast our fears, worries, suffering and pain on God..." But even this can seem like a stale phrase. Because when it really hurts, I mean really hurts, like stubbed your toe against the door, couch, or bed kind of HURT .... God can seem so far away. This is where good friends and good friends in FAITH come in. You will help each other to move ahead, and you will need each other far more than those stale phrases. It is without a doubt that life becomes unmanageable, and you must have someone who is willing to walk alongside you; whether to hold your hand, hold the umbrella to weather the downpour, or chase the clouds away. Learning to be there for one another in the midst of all the anguish.
When we are willing to rest in the pain of one another, to ride out with one another when life’s highway turns problematic like I-77 during a morning commute (or any time of the day at this point) or I-95S if you didn't get on the road before 7AM, and to accept one another’s burdens when they are too heavy, we personify something so much greater. While life can sometimes be too much, through the goodness of HIM we become a living and breathing testimony .... many of us become a
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