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1 Corinthians 10:13b – God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. (NLT)
2 Corinthians 12:9a – Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." (NLT)
"God won't put more on you than you can handle."
Many a well-meaning Christian has made this statement — or some form of it — to someone who's going through a tough time. To a woman who has miscarried. To a man who has watched his wife walk out and leave him holding the bag — and everything in it. To the wife who has received the news that her husband has just been killed in the line of duty. Or to the child whose parents keep telling him that he's no good and will never amount to anything.
I've heard it said — and maybe have said it myself in the heat of the moment before I had time to think about what I was saying. Perhaps, I just nodded my head in agreement with the one who was saying it, or agreed with the devastated person who said it themselves to me.
This isn't the only thing that I've heard attributed to God or to the Bible that wasn't true — or was at the least misinterpreted. There is a similar promise, but it applies only to temptation. God doesn't promise to prevent temptation, but He does promise not to let it overwhelm us. He also promises to give us a way out so that we don't have to fall into sin.
Paul had a thorn in the flesh. Opponents? A handicap? Poor eyesight? Who knows? What it was isn't important. How he responded is. When God told Paul that He wasn't going to remove it, Paul accepted it. God assured Paul that His grace was sufficient to live with it, move through it, and get over it. After all, God works best when I acknowledge my weaknesses.
The truth of the matter is that apart from temptation, God will put more on me than I can handle. If I could handle everything, I wouldn't need God — and many don't think they do. They use their wisdom, resources, friends, acquaintances, or addictive substances to get through — all the while proclaiming that they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
I suppose that I've been guilty a few times of thinking that I could handle what life threw at me, only to discover that I wasn't as strong as I thought. I crumbled beneath the load — or succumbed to the temptation to find something, or someone, to help me get through.
God puts more on us than we can handle so that we'll come running to Him for guidance and strength, so that we'll realize that we were created to live life under His authority and love.
Don't try to handle life's burdens on your own. God wants to lighten your load.
Prayer: Father, thank You for handling our burdens so that we don't have to labour under the load of trying to do it ourselves. Amen.
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Amen. Amen.
Good one Martin.
Good job, Brother. I agree wholeheartedly.
Excellent devotional this morning, Martin. Thank you.
Well said Martin. Thank you for this meaningful devotion.
Martin – this devotional is excellent. Thank you for the clarification and explanation. May God richly bless you.
I too have been guilty of agreeing with that statement. Thank you for your clarifying and comforting comments.
Great lesson Martin. The Scripture is so often misunderstood but you explained it well.
Blessings.
Thank you for the balance that you give in considering these two passages. I appreciate your insights and the truth that you share.
Thanks, Martin, for sharing your thoughts with us this morning. Indeed, we truly need God’s strength to make it through tough times. Blessings.
This is unbelievable. Your devotional reads as if I could have written it. Wow. It is a reminder from our Heavenly Father to me. Thank you. God’s timing is indeed unbelievable.
Thank you Martin, for your clarifying message, – I have never heard it explained so well or so eloquently that God does challenge us but only so we will recognize our specific weaknesses and turn to Him for help.
Bless you.
How often too is the suggestion made or implied, that we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps as if we are the only one capable of doing so on our own … and then when we try to do so, our messes become even more
overwhelming and out of control. God does indeed allow more than we can handle if we try to handle it without Him.
God Bless.
Dear Martin,
Thank you for a thought-provoking and mature devotional. Simplistic cliches, borrowed from the world, do not help us when hard times come.
God’s grace is, indeed, sufficient. This is something a person can’t fully understand until they have gone through it.
Please continue to write these inspiring devotionals.
Dear Martin Wiles,
I notice that the “Verse for the Day,” from Ephesians 1:18-20, located under your devotional fits it in some ways.
Thanks for writing. We all, as fallible human beings, need to confess our sins and neediness to depend on the love and power of Jesus Christ to forgive, heal, and sustain.
Keep writing.
Hello Martin,
Thank you for your devotional, and the wise teaching. It is so natural, in our sinful estate, to want to rely only upon ourselves, and so easy therefore to blind ourselves to our dependence upon the Lord. What a good, and necessary reminder!
Blessings,
(BC)