God can handle

For some reason, I've heard this phrase four or five times in the last few days, and it's grating on me more and more:

"God won't give you more than you can handle."

Um...yeah He does. That's what drives us to Him.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. - 1 Cor. 1:25

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Cor. 12:8-10

But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength... - Hosea 10:13

"Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—guilty men, whose own strength is their god." - Habakkuk 1:11

I think it comes from this verse:
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. 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 stand up under it. - 1 Cor. 10:13

But look again -- God provides the way out. It's our decision to turn to God when we're given more than we can handle.

Thoughts? What has God given you that you can't handle on your own? Or do you think I'm wrong, and that God doesn't give us more than we can handle?

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8 Comments

hmmm very interesting insight. could it be that that God does give us what we can handle but it's under his definition of what we can handle not ours. so we might not be aware that we can get through a tough situation and God's like push, come on, it's fine.

Another thought along the same lines- God doesn't give us temptations. It states in the 1 Cor. passage you referenced that "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man," and in James 1:13-18 James talks about temptation coming from our own evil desires. There, James outrightly says, "God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone." So, using the 1 Cor. passage about temptations (not from God) and applying it to all life circumstances (from God) is mis-applying the verse. As you've pointed out, God's role in the tempting situations is to provide a way out. I also agree that getting more than we can handle- whether from temptation or from God-arranged circumstance- should show us our need for God.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that phrase. I myself have used it, or abused it just trying to make others feel better through cliche`s. Going through somethings myself that I cannot for the life of me know why I'm in it, I find myself surrendering whatever ideas that I had to fix it and admit that they were pretty much nothing compared to what He's got. But the beauty of that was He still listened to me.

i think you're right - He does give us more than we as humans can handle, but never more than He can handle, and we do have to make the conscious choice to let him handle it for us... and yes, I can definitely think of quite a few times he put me in impossible situations just to remind me who's my true source of strength.