I've been having discussions with someone I care about over this whole idea of "God will never give you more than you can handle".
My friend has been told by two different priests and many other well meaning Christians that God won't give anyone more than they can handle, and my friend is feeling disillusioned because some bad things have happened and my friend feels like it really is more than can be coped with. So my friend is feeling gyped I guess - like something was promised by God and not delivered. [God never, ever says in the Bible "I won't give you more than you can handle" - somebody find me THAT quote and I'll send you a dozen chocolate chip cookies!].
Through the years when we've had stressful things happen in our life, people have told me this. People like to spout this little bit of wisdom. Even Mother Teresa said something like "I know God won't give me more than I can handle, I just wish He didn't trust me so much!".
Well, all due respect for Mother Teresa [one of my daughters is named after her after all LOL!], but I disagree.
Maybe it was all that time I spent in the Marine Corps, but sometimes I think God is a Drill Instructor. Sometimes God has to totally break you down, totally tear you apart, and knock you so low that you can't do anything other than look UP. In the Marine Corps, my Drill Instructors would tell us that was their job - their job was to completely tear us down, to totally rend our psyches into little pieces, and then rebuild us into the finest fighting force in the world. And they did it pretty well - just read the long and honorable history of the Corps.
I think God is like that sometimes. Some of us [ahem, like me] need more kicking before we learn our lesson - before we lay down and stop struggling and just *listen* for the voice of God.
The Bible is full of verses about this. One of my favorite is "The Lord chastises those whom He loves.". [This always makes me feel loved very much, God's gotta love me to spend so much time chastising me. LOL!] Then there are all manner of verses about man being refined like gold in the fire. I could go on and on, I have a prayer notebook with all these written down, I found them very helpful when I was trying not to die at the end of my last pregnancy.
Some of us only reach for God completely when we are in the lowest pit of despair, and this is what it has taken for me every time to get me to grow in holiness. [You'd think I'd learn at some point - but I never do. Sometimes I think I'm not too bright.]
So, personally, I think we do a disservice when we spout little platitudes about how God won't give us more than we can handle. That's a load of hooey.
When my friend says to me "God has given me more than I can handle" I look up and say "Yep. He sure has."
That's really the whole point isn't it? We *CAN'T* handle it, we are crushed under the weight of misfortune at times - and it is in this state that we MUST learn to reach for *GOD* and LET Him carry us. We have to let Him carry our broken spirits just like He carried that Cross to Cavalry - we will find our salvation there - and only there.
If we don't learn to reach for Him in our misfortune, we won't learn to reach for Him at all.
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What a timely post! I keep my copy of "Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence" on the bedside table to glance at when I'm nursing the baby. This was this morning's reading:
Do not let ourselves be troubled when we are sometimes beset by adversity, for we know that it is meant for our spiritual welfare and carefully proportioned to our needs, and that a limit has been set to it by the wisdom of the same God who has set a bound to the ocean. Sometimes it might seem as if the sea in its fury would overflow and flood the land, but it respects the limits of its shore and its waves break upon the yielding sand. There is no tribulation or temptation whose limits God has not appointed so as to serve not for our destruction but for our salvation. "God is faithful," says the Apostle, "and will not permit you to be tempted (or afflicted) beyond your strength," but it is necessary for you to be so, since "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" in the steps of our Redeemer who said of Himself, "Did not thr Christ have to suffer all these things before entering into his glory?" The first scripture, in quotes, is First Corinthians 10:13.
And, from a less "theological" viewpoint, I once heard Delilah, of syndicated radio fame, tell a caller who had said God wouldn't send her anything she couldn't handle, that yes, He would, He just wouldn't send her anything she couldn't handle without His help.
God bless!
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