Scripture or Cliche

More than we can handle

Now here is one that we’ve probably all heard and even said ourselves many times. There is some truth in this phrase, right? We’re all still here. We have come through 100% of our struggles thus far, right? Or have we? Is merely surviving, the point? Is being alive and sitting in church a sure sign that we are “handling” things? What do we call this room we are sitting in together? A “sanctuary,” right? What does “sanctuary” mean? It is a place of refuge, a place where we are safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. The very idea of sanctuary is that we all have a place we can go to precisely when we are feeling overwhelmed and can’t seem to handle things!

The Bible is full of stories of people not being able to handle things. If simply being alive is the definition of handling things, then all of the people in the Bible have failed! Even Jesus died. Surely Able was not handling things with Cain. And Stephen was not really handling things when his peers were stoning him to death. What about John the Baptist when Herod’s wife called for his beheading? Or the guy dying on the side of the road before the Samaritan came along? And what about our own experiences? Surely the folks in Orlando, San Bernadino, and Sandy Hook were given more than they could handle, and the continual struggles in the Middle East show us a situation that no one seems to be able to handle. All of the people living in abusive relationships or the children who roam the streets homeless? Our lives are full of people who are suffering with more than they can handle. How would anyone feel if our response to suffering is simply to say, “Hang in there, God doesn’t give us more than we can handle?”

It might have started from a misinterpretation of our text from I Corinthians: 10:13 “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (I Corinthians 10:13) The word “tested” in Greek is πειρασμός (peirasmos) meaning to test or tempt. The idea in I Corinthians then is not that God gives us tests for our strength, but rather that temptation is something that happens to all of us.

God is not the one doing this to us, rather we, ourselves, are tempted by things outside of God’s desire for us.

God is the one actually sitting beside us helping us find a way out of the temptation, not the one causing it. If we were left alone to handle things, we would, more often than not, end up following that which tempts us rather than living in the abundance already provided for us. We are the ones creating havoc. God is the one helping us find a way out when there doesn’t seem to be one.

How many times in our lives have we been in a position where it seems we have way more on us than we can handle? For most if not all people, we have things dumped out on us and we can feel the burden of life itself weighing us down to the point we can barely stand. Life crushes us, hurts and scars us and it will continue to do that and we must realize that and not try to take comfort from a saying that doesn’t exist for in that there is no help at all.

We may try to self-help, read books, watch programs that try to convince us that we are strong enough to endure anything, we can handle any problem and bear any weight and when you resort to self-help you have no help at all. We often believe that I can it all, I can handle everything life throws at me, “I thrive under pressure.” That’s nice to think about but you better watch out because if you believe that long enough you may start to believe it and the day will come when life will show you that you cannot handle it, so what then?

The Bible is not a self-help book but, rather, a God-will-help book.

Charles Stanley

In 2nd Corinthians, Paul lists the problems he’s faced:

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” (2 Corinthians 11:24-28, ESV)

Paul had been crushed by life and he knew it, he also knew that others have felt the same way and he wanted to comfort them for several reasons: for one, so that they knew they are not alone in how they feel and second, the importance that they have for each other going through these times.

Paul has come to a point where he was in great despair, burdened beyond measure.

The New King James Version Chapter 1

we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.

He was saying that he was feeling as if he were dead.

The New King James Version Chapter 1

Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,

“God will not give you more than you can handle?” Jesus sweat blood in the garden because he couldn’t handle it. And Paul felt so overpowered, so burdened, so stressed that it says “he despaired of life itself.”

This is how hopeless his experience had been but he also knew that because of the grace of God, that his deliverance from those struggles were as good to him as the resurrection itself. He felt free from all of that which burdened him and that didn’t come from his own strength but by prayer from himself and from others that delivered him from those struggles.

We have times in our lives where we are going to feel the same as Paul, that we have so much on us that it is as if we were dead, that we can’t bear one more little thing and we may find ourselves asking God what the point of all this is, why am I burdened so much? We may not know the answers to these questions but what we do know is that if it happened to the man that wrote the new testament, it can happen to us and we must be ready for it and know how to deal with it as Paul did.

The New King James Version Chapter 1

11 you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.

Paul believed in prayer and here he is thanking the people for praying for him in his travels and struggles, because he knew that without prayer, he had no chance in and of himself. He knew that if he relied on his own strength that it can cause us to turn inward instead of turning Godward. What happens to us when we turn inward?

Here is the shift in thinking in order for us to turn this half-truth around and understand the full truth of it: Its not that God won’t give us more than we can handle, but rather God comes along beside us to help us handle all that life gives us. This shift helps us reorder our thinking, doesn’t it? Here, God is not seen as some kind of superior judge who stands over us, experimenting with our lives, just to see how much we can stand before we break, but rather, God is a loving, compassionate companion in our struggles, helping us find a way through them.

God helps us in our struggles by sending us the Spirit through the love and compassion each of us have for one another. Half-truth discussions, this is how we say these things as a way to excuse ourselves from having to be engaged in each other’s lives. I think this is the real danger of these half-truths and why we need to expose them. If we are using these clichés in order to shirk our responsibilities to one another, then surely we are not following God’s desire for us.

We use cliches to bypass our responsibilities to one another. We are cheating God.

God’s creation includes us to be there for one another, nurturing and strengthening one another, cultivating the earth, not destroying it. If we tell one another just to “hang in there” without helping each other figure out how we might do that, then we are ignoring our call from God in creation.

We cry out, “God, you said you would not give me more than I can bear!” No, what I said is that “My grace is sufficient for you, For MY strength is made perfect in weakness.”

When we have more than we can handle we should pray for God to give us his grace to walk in it and then our trouble becomes our testimony.

God does not put trouble in our life to show us how strong we are, we have troubles because of life just being life and it isn’t fair but God will use those troubles to show us how sufficient his grace is to meet those needs.

If you’re in that place today, struggling to make sense of the time you’re in, please know that you are not alone, you have a room full of people here that will help you, walk with you, talk with you but most importantly we have a God that tells us that no matter what we face in life that His grace is enough.