More than we can Handle

These past few days I've been thinking about that phrase that floats around often in Christian circles... "God will never give you more than you can handle".  I think that it comes, mistakenly, from 1 Corinthians 10:13, "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."  This actually doesn't ever say that you will not be given more than you can handle... it just speaks to temptation and that God, through His Holy Spirit, has provided you with the strength that you need to not give in to temptation.  Being a new creation in Christ, you now have the strength to stand up under temptation and endure!  You are no longer a slave to your sin and the temptations that Satan throws your way.There are, however, many other situations in which we will find ourselves overwhelmed and feeling exceptionally unprepared.  The first of which in my life is my very salvation.  As we have been studying through Romans with the girls we have talked a lot about the law and that the very law that would bring life, if you could possibly follow it, really brought death because it showed us how deep our sin really runs and how little we can actually do to try to earn our way to God.  These words from Shane and Shane's song, "Beg" have been running through my head.

I'm haunted by my God
Who has the right to ask me
What by the nature
Of my rebellion I cannot give

From the beginning of our walk with the Lord he gives us something that we cannot handle.  To be in His presence, He demands perfection, holiness... and I, by the nature of my sinful rebellion, will never be able to give that to Him.  So I needed help, a rescuer, and He sent me Jesus.  The first of many things that I could not handle.

How about moving to the mission field and feeling the call to start a girls' home for young single moms when I didn't even speak Spanish?  God gave me something I could not handle and then provided the help that I needed at just the point when I needed it.  He was reminding me that this ministry belonged to Him and not to me, that He is the one that is building it and sustaining it.


How about when my girls, or as I like to call them my emotionally unstable adult children, end up in a shouting match or a punching match or making death threats to each other.  I would like to go on record as saying that I am unprepared to handle discipline with these girls.  I do it every day.  But how do you gracefully, yet lovingly, yet firmly, figure out how to discipline girls who have never had rules in their lives and don't even know the first thing about what is looks like to love and respect someone?  I swear that there are moments where the Holy Spirit just speaks because I go into a situation having no idea what I'm going to say and then its handled by the time I leave.  Another thing on the long list of things I can't handle.


And in my family?  Marrying into being a mom of three children was not something that was on my radar just a few short years ago.  Dealing with their backgrounds and teaching them English and trying to lovingly point them to Jesus day after day.  I obviously can't handle it because there are days that I don't do a very good job.  And yet the Lord is right there reminding me that they are HIS and it is His job to handle it.


So... lets just dispel the myth that we will never have more on our plate than we can handle.  And instead lets embrace the truth that we are never alone to walk through these things on our own strength.  This ministry, my family, my salvation........  these things belong to the Lord.


I will leave you with one of my favorite verses of all time..."He is before ALL things and in HIM all things hold together."  Colossians 1:17