I can’t tell you how often I hear the phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle!” It makes me cringe every time because then the implication is that if you are overwhelmed by the circumstances that surround you, then you aren’t doing life right. You must be weak, or faithless, or messing something up. But this is nowhere in the Bible!
The verse that I think is misquoted is 1 Cor 10:13, in which Paul talks about how God will always provide a way of escape from temptation. This verse DOES NOT say that we will never find ourselves in places that are overwhelming or too much for our own strength.
In fact, in 2 Cor 1:8-11, Paul talks about the severe trials he had experienced in Turkey, so overwhelming that he and the others being persecuted wanted to give up entirely. But he says these circumstances taught him to lose faith in himself and place all of his trust in the God who raises the dead. I find it interesting that Paul references God’s miraculous resurrections in this case—in other words, nothing (not even death) is too much for God.
Have you ever found yourself in a place that seemed too much for you to handle? Maybe it’s physical illness, or incredible work stress, or financial loss and insecurity, or emotional rollercoasters of relationships, or the idols of coping like addiction, or the repercussions of trauma, or feeling stuck and unable to get any traction in life. I’m feeling overwhelmed just listing these and thinking of people in each of these situations.
So, what do we do instead if the answer is not to require ourselves to handle it all because we are operating under the mistaken assumption that God expects us to? I encourage myself and my counselees to first write everything down that is pressing in. It’s sort of a brain dump to clear all of the stressors out and put them down on paper. That might seem like it will feel too much, but I find it very helpful.
After you write everything down that’s on your mind and feels overwhelming right now, pick out the things you CAN do something about. I’m never encouraging passivity or laziness, but I would suggest that there will only be a few things that you can do anything about at this point. Write those down on a to-do list.
We then bring all the rest of the stressors and lay them down at the feet of Jesus. We invite Him into the mess, not trying to clean it up first and make it presentable. We admit our weakness as Paul talks about in 2 Cor 12:9. He didn’t encourage trying to be enough for the circumstance, but rather celebrating weakness because it is a portal for God’s incredible power to work within us.
I think we might do this and expect enough strength for the rest of the trial. But God only gives us enough for this moment, because He really wants us dependent on Him. We keep coming back for more, even a thousand times a day, and He loves to make Himself available to us whenever we come. Our goal isn’t to finally be strong enough to handle everything in our lives, but rather to become completely dependent on His strength for everything in our lives. In doing that, we find strength that is beyond what we could generate ourselves, but also a sweetness of relationship as we recognize we are never alone. He is always available, always listening, always wanting to be enough. We get to recognize His strength that is always accessible to us through Christ’s Life within, but we have to turn to it instead of trying to be enough in our own power. So, God never gives us anything He can’t handle through us!
Brothers and sisters, you need to know about the severe trials we experienced while we were in western Turkey. All of the hardships we passed through crushed us beyond our ability to endure, and we were so completely overwhelmed that we were about to give up entirely. It felt like we had a death sentence written upon our hearts, and we still feel it to this day. It has taught us to lose all faith in ourselves and to place all of our trust in the God who raises the dead. He has rescued us from terrifying encounters with death. And now we fasten our hopes on him to continue to deliver us from death yet again, as you labor together with us through prayer. Because there are so many interceding for us, our deliverance will cause even more people to give thanks to God. What a gracious gift of mercy surrounds us because of your prayers! 2 Corinthians 1:8-11