Letter to Katy

God Won’t Give Us More Than We Can Handle

(Below is a letter I sent to a friend of my in California)

Regarding the phrase you used, God won’t give us more than we can handle, seems to be a cliché and probably came from the verse below.

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 ( I found out later the phrase has been paraphrased.)

I can’t find any biblical reference to that exact phrase and I’ve done a good search.  There are many that give their opinions as to what they think it means but the opinions go from one end of the spectrum to the other.  The question you posed about a mother that looses a child is a good example of just how wrong that statement can be. There are those that would say it is supposed to draw us closer to God and in some instances I would say yes it does but not all. How can anyone account for the mothers that can’t handle it and sink into a depression they never come out of?  What about the mothers that actually go insane because of the loss of their child?  In these last two examples it is plain to see that they were not able to handle it so how can that statement be true?

If a person is in deep depression or mentally insane, they aren’t going to be drawn closer to God, most likely they won’t even know He exists.

Back in the early 50’s we had a wood/coal burning cook stove in the kitchen and every morning I would go in and stand beside it trying to get warm. Being little and not able to reach the stove I climbed up on a stool (which I still have) so I could get close to the heat.  It turned out that my mother was also standing there trying to get warm and was reading the newspaper. All of a sudden she let out a big scream, grabbed me and ran a block to the neighbors. The doctor came and the police came and took her away.  I was old enough to understand they had taken her away to a mental institution.  Why?  Because on the front page of the newspaper was a picture and story about a little boy my age that died in a fire that was caused by a cook stove, just like we had. In her mind she related that picture to being me and she instantly went insane. She was confined to a mental institution I know for over a year and back then the treatment was barbaric. They would attach electric wires to her head and send electricity into her head and it was supposed to snap her out of it which it didn’t.  They tried the water treatment where she was strapped into a chair and lowered into a vat of ice cold water and then lifted up and put into hot water, then cold water and then hot water and this was supposed to shock the system.  Now if anyone and I don’t care who it is, pastor, preacher, priest and all the well meaning church going people EVER told me that God won’t give us more than we can handle, well let’s just say they shouldn’t do that. Let THEM undergo what my mother did and then come back and tell me that phrase. My mother didn’t handle what was thrown at her so just by this one example my belief is that that phrase is nothing more than a cliché.  There are a lot of well meaning people that throw out these little catch phrases and have never experienced anything close to what my mother did or the mothers used in the example above.  The verse above is about temptation, not what we can handle, emotionally or physically.

Last night Vonnie came home and told me Patrick had died.  Patrick was the newborn baby of Tara, a woman Vonnie works with and is as religious as the day is long. She was having trouble with the baby but she kept telling her other two kids that God would not let her lose the baby. They had to take it at 31 weeks because of kidney failure which they had been treating for a week or so. The baby had surgery on the kidneys and they seemed to be working alright but one of the lungs then collapsed and they blew it back up then the other collapsed.  The baby died and only lived a week. The mother was so sure God wouldn’t let her lose the baby and she has said she didn’t know what to tell the kids. She went into depression.  With that in mind, how do you think she would feel that while at the funeral, especially, or really any other time someone would walk up to her and say, honey I know what you must be going through but don’t worry God will not give us more than we can handle. How well do you think that statement would be received? It would probably turn into a bar room brawl.

Like God Will Provide, this is another good example of someone taking a verse and twisting it to suit their own purpose. I told Vonnie last night when we were talking about this that if a pastor would say God will not give us more than we can handle I would have to ok, you show me anywhere in the bible that exact verse and wording then I will believe it but until you do you are preaching false doctrine.   Some would say I’m nit picking and I would simply say doesn’t the bible teach us not to add to or take away anything in the bible or God’s Word?