I have had a
lot of people tell me, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” Heck, I
have even said it myself to countless people, fumbling for the awkward words to
ease their pain and my discomfort…trying to boost my own faith and confidence
in who I believe God to be. Who I think He should be.
It sounds good. It sounds right. It actually
does provide a little bit of comfort. As I have mulled over this phrase, I have
come to realize that I have never read this anywhere in the Bible. And I am
starting to wonder if it is even in accordance with Scripture to believe this
way.
The verse in
the Bible I think we draw this from is talking about temptation. God will never
tempt you beyond what you can bear. Or rather:
“No temptation
has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. 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 endure it.” 1 Corinthians
10:12-14 (NIV)
There is a
HUGE difference in God giving us temptation
that is too great to bear and God giving us suffering that is too great to bear.
What would
be the effect of God allowing us to be tempted
beyond what we can bear? We would
crumble under every desire and temptation to sin. Instead of succumbing to sin
on a regular basis as even the “best” of us do now, we would give way to sin
all the time, without exception. We would be in a perpetual prison cycle of
sin, and therefore, sanctification (that is, the process of becoming more and
more like Jesus) would be blocked, null, moot. There would be no refining work
in our hearts, no power of the Holy Spirit to make us more righteous and to
make us die increasingly to our sin. We would instead be slaves to it.
In contrast,
what would be the effect of God allowing us to suffer beyond what we can bear? In my mind, it looks like complete brokenness.
It looks like death to self. It looks a lot like total and complete dependence
on God because I simply CAN NOT bear it. The pain is too great. It is bringing
me to the end of myself.
As I have
been struggling with my own pain and with this saying about God not giving us
more than we can bear, I was reminded by a friend of this passage. Here is what
Paul said to the Corinthians with regard to his suffering:
“8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and
sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond
our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of
death.”
Does this sound like suffering you or me, or ANYONE could bear?? Then he
goes on…
“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 again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to
deliver us…” 2 Corinthians 1:8-9
Paul is very
clear about the nature of the suffering he and the followers of Christ endured
in Asia. It was excessive burden beyond what they could bear. They
despaired even of life. They thought they had received the sentence of death
within themselves. It was bad. Worse
than my daughter getting that teacher.
Worse than pulling up to Chick-fil-A for
Sunday lunch. Worse than the grocery store at 5:00 with all three kids. Really,
really bad.
And then you have the Apostles. Every
one of them was killed for advancing the kingdom of God and refusing to deny
the Risen Christ (except for John, who died in exile, and Judas who committed
suicide). Brutal beatings, beheadings, and torture. Death. God did not spare
His own Son from suffering. He did not spare those who would be the first to
propel this Gospel into the world. Why would he spare us? Why should He?
Why does Paul say God gives us suffering “beyond our
ability to endure?” So that we might not rely on ourselves but on God,
who raises the dead. And that we might set our hope on Him Who has delivered us
and will continue to deliver us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Christ
didn’t suffer so that we might never suffer. Christ suffered so that we might become like Him in our suffering.” How?
Suffering is God’s chosen way of making us more like Jesus. It is the ONLY way.
There is no health and wealth philosophy in the pages of my Bible for following
Jesus. No guarantee for material possessions, no promise of continual health
and happiness on earth. No promise that He will NOT give us more than we can
handle. Instead, He promises trouble. He promises suffering. He promises
disappointment, loss, sadness, and even death.
This goes so against our
comfort-obsessed, pleasure-seeking, and superficial “like” ing culture.
I am so trained to filter everything by
whether I “like” it or not thanks to Facebook that I find myself looking for
the “like” button on texts and emails and articles. Whatever happened to
reading something and judging it by whether it made me think deeply about an
issue, or whether I learned something, or whether it made me uncomfortable, or
whether I totally dislike it but it made me see another side??
Life is not about what we “like” and
don’t “like.” Life is FULL of things we don’t like. I don’t “like” lice. I don’t
“like” it when Georgia is tied with North Texas (um, what?), which is why I am
writing instead of watching. I don’t also “like” it when a lady gets in front
of me in the “10 items or less” line with 57 things in her cart. Can you tell I
am quite in touch with what I do NOT like? I don’t “like” the fact that my dad
is gone. I don’t “like” suffering, but
God in His infinite wisdom has given it to me, to us.
We partake in His suffering so that
we may also partake in His glory. We all suffer. It is universal. It is not
uniform. All of our suffering looks different. But God uses it. ALL. He does
not waste anything in His economy. He has entrusted us, in a way, with our
suffering.
So what is the Good News, the Gospel, in all of this?
Here is the great balloon of hope that
we tie to our sinking, suffocating hearts. We rely on God and set our hope upon
Him who raises the dead. And delivers us again and again and again because we
cannot bear it. He has totally given
us more than we can handle. That is the point of the whole Gospel, the entire
Old Testament. We can’t do it on our own. We can’t bear it on our own. We have
to have Jesus Christ to deliver us. From our sin. From our suffering.
The reward for seeking Christ in the
midst of suffering, of loss beyond what you can bear, of a broken heart, a
broken life, a broken spirit is this: We get Jesus. Period. We get Him now and
we get Him in eternity.
That’s IT,
you say? Spiritual jargon. Blah blah blah. Um… I think the answer is “Jesus?”
Let’s try it this way. If we have trusted
Christ, we get all the beauty, all the joy, all the redemption, forgiveness,
and glory of the risen King of kings. Beauty for ashes. A garment of praise for
our heaviness. We get His yoke upon us, His easy and light burden, and He takes
ours in return. Every spiritual blessing is ours. And more importantly, we get
His presence. He will deliver us ultimately from the suffering that is too
great to bear.
You and I
will suffer. In this world you WILL have trouble, but He bears it with us and for
us. Take heart, He has overcome the world! When He was sweating blood in the
Garden of Gethsemane begging the Father to take this cup from Him, Jesus was
bearing it. While He struggled for breath, bleeding, crying out “Father, why
have you forsaken me?” Jesus was bearing our every burden.
God
ab.so.lute.ly gives us way stinkin’ more than we can handle. He does it lovingly,
but with a consuming desire for Himself to be glorified and lifted up. Suffering
is the means which God uses to wean us from the world and woo us to Heaven.
I told
Marcus the other night, “I just want to feel like myself again.” I said it
knowing that the old self, the one that carried no real grief or loss or
gripping sadness, is for all practical purposes gone forever. This is a hard
revelation for me. I have always tried to view the cup as ¾ full. I put great
emphasis on finding joy in all things.
I still look
for joy, if not more so since I have to search so diligently for daily glimpses
of it at times. But I am no longer as light-hearted. Ask my kids. My once
feathery, carefree soul feels weighted, like a great suit of medieval armor has
been chained around my chest and on my shoulders, and I now drag it along everywhere.
Especially when bedtime comes and everyone is doing cartwheels instead of
putting on their pajamas and the two-year-old is screaming for me to come put
her blanket on. Again.
Weighty. Heavy.
Sorrowful.
In a way,
the old me has vanished and the new me, the one who carries around her dad’s handkerchief
in her purse, is here to stay. I am mourning the loss of the old me, but I have
come to the realization that I don’t ever want to be that girl again.
While she
had her charms, she didn’t love as deeply or think she needed God as
desperately as the new me. She didn’t listen, I mean, really listen for other people’s hurts. And she squandered hundreds
of chances to bring Life and Truth to those around her who were perishing. She
was a little too comfortable in the temporary. A little too focused on the here
and the now. A little too self- reliant. She thought she could never be given
more than she can handle.
As I carry
around the handkerchief that is as heavy as armor, God is reminding me not to waste my suffering. He is
allowing my heart to break so that I will long for Him, for heaven. And he is
reminding me that He has delivered me. He
takes my heavy yoke upon Him so I do not have to carry it all alone. He is
telling me to rely on Him to handle the burden and the pain that is too great
to bear, until one day, I won’t need to wear waterproof mascara every day. Because
His gracious, merciful hand will wipe away every tear from every eye.
