More Than You Can Handle

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.