I'm sure most of us have had times in our experience when it seemed that life was giving us far more than we could handle. Perhaps it was the perfect storm of a health crisis in addition to family dysfunction and a friend suffering a new diagnosis of cancer. One statement that gets spouted often when people go through a lot is: God won't give you more than you can handle. The joke tag line to that is “I just wish God didn't trust me so much!” I have come to find that statement as painful and unhelpful to most people. It is easy to spout such a platitude in hopes you'll make people feel better but in reality that does little to help someone deal with their troubles. Yes, some are able to use it to gather up their strength and pull themselves up and plow through the hardship. For others, however, they find that statement burdensome and disheartening. God won't give you more than you can handle? Tell that to a survivor of Auschwitz. Tell it to the man who lost his wife and child in a car accident. Tell it to the person crushed under the weight of depression and anxiety.
The statement, that “God won't give you more than you can handle,” isn't even in the Bible. There is a statement that sounds like it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” But notice that verse is about temptation. You won't be tempted beyond what you can stand up against. This text is not saying that you will not experience more than you can bear. If anything the exact opposite is true. Look at 2 Corinthians1: 8-9: “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Paul writes it is when he is weak that the strength of Christ is seen. In other words, when we can't do it any longer. When it is beyond our capability to deal with it. Then, in that moment, the strength of God will come. Until we get to that point, we rely on ourselves thinking we can handle it and take care of the problem. As people of faith, suffering through hard times may bring us to ask a lot of questions. Why God? Why everything at once? Why did you allow this to happen? There is something holy and sacred in having the courage to ask the hard questions of God especially when those questions often have no answers. Sometimes the best thing we can do to support someone going through hard times is to listen and be present with them in their pain. The less words said the better.
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