kayfromhome

I grew up hearing the phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

It was meant as an encouragement. Buck up, kiddo. You’re stronger than your circumstances. You can get through anything with God and a little bit of elbow grease.

For a time, I believed that.  I lived as if God would give me the strength to independently overcome anything and everything that came my way.  

That belief, however, would leave me angry; frustrated at myself every time I faced something I couldn’t possibly overcome on my own.  Self-loathing would overwhelm me. If God only gave me what He knew could handle and I failed, didn’t that essentially mean I failed Him?

“God won’t give you more than you can handle.’

“God helps those who help themselves.”

“God wants you to be happy.”

Ack. Where do these sayings even come from? Because, they aren’t from the Bible.

God absolutely gives you more than you can handle, and he does it on purpose. That’s how we learn reliance on Him.

God helps those who can’t help themselves, because with our sin nature, we well and truly can’t help ourselves.

God, the giver of good gifts and the good Father that He is may want us to be happy, but never at the expense of being holy.

If you, like me, have ever been duped by one of these casual “Christian” sayings, I lament with you. I know I’m not the only one who has been deceived by the not so holy drivel that’s floating around out there. But we are not without hope!

In the face of circumstances greater than that which I can handle, I do sometimes fail God. But not to his disappointment and never unexpectedly. The God we serve is intimate in the knowledge of human weakness, in fact, He is glorified through it because by comparison His strength looms larger.

Amen.