Have you ever heard that God won’t give you more than you can handle? I came to a shocking realization this week. That common phrase is not found in the Bible. We are promised that in facing temptation, God will provide a way of escape, but in every day life, there isn’t a verse that says “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
Please understand, I do believe God will provide for our needs and that He is more than enough to sustain us. But what needs to sustain us through the difficult times is the hope that we have in eternal life. There is something better waiting for us. The knowledge of the truth gives us hope.
Some people have asked me about this, using 1 Corinthians 10:13 as proof God will not allow us to have more than we can handle. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "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."
I totally agree that when it comes to temptation, God’s Word promises that we will be provided a way out if we choose to take it. I tried to make that clear in the sermon.
Usually when we hear someone say “God will not give you more than you can handle”, it is in the context of tragedy – death, accident, illness, etc. – not temptation. As I said in the sermon, I believe that God is enough, that He provides for our needs. This fact is especially true in facing tragedy. But what gets us through tough times is not the promise that He will never give us more than we can handle, it is the promise and hope of eternal life.
When people tell others this phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”, it is intended to make the person feel better. But I think it actually makes the person feel worse. They feel worse because if that statement is true, then they shouldn’t be having as difficult a time as they are having. After all, they should be able to “handle” this. Or, they feel worse because they question why God is failing them in giving them more than what they can
handle.
The message of the Bible is that we cannot handle things on our own. We do not rely on our self. That’s why I think it’s important to search the Scripture and see that we don’t necessarily have a promise saying I will not face any situation in life that I cannot handle. Rather, it is our hope in God and eternal life that pulls us through the difficult times.
I hope this helps explain what I said.
I would like your thoughts on this phrase. Let me know what you think!
6 comments:
Your insights add a new item to my list of things Christians say but the Bible does not
I had always heard that from people but went to find the verse in the Bible and had no luck.
I think that in telling someone that God wont give you more then you can handle, it means that the tradigy that you are currently facing, will not be the end of you.
You will survive it. God will help you through it. Knowing that in the back of my mind has helped me to get through some rough times in my life.
Thanks for letting me post.
I came to think about that today - and even though I have always also quoted that phrase to everyone including myself, now for the first time I really looked at it: If God does not give us more than we can bear, how come Stephen couldn't bear the weight of the stones that killed him - or what about Isaiah being sawed to two - that I believe was also more than Isaiah could 'handle'. It´s a weird statement as it doesn't seem to ring through in real life, even if we take it to mean our mental or spiritual strength...><> m
Wow... awesome point. I just told my boyfriend today "God won't give you more than you can handle!" and he said that he hates when people say that, and it's not even in the Bible. So I googled it and found your blog... thanks for clearing that up for me!
I'll add that to the same list as "God helps those who help themselves."
Awesome blog. Thanks so much for writing this. Recently I lost a good friend to suicide, and this was the mantra my entire church walked around quoting. It never sat well with me, and I didn't know why. Finally I started asking people to show me where in the Bible it said this. After some frantic searching, some people in my church came up with the verse you listed. But even then, the way they misconstrued the idea in the verse still made me uncomfortable, for the very reasons you said: if God says he won't give us more than we can handle, then I was failing by not "handling" it rightly.
Anyways, thanks so much for this blog. It helped me make sense of the whole mess.
Blessings!
What occurs to me is that God may do just exactly that..give us more than we can handle... in an effort to bring us closer to him. It certainly worked for me. Can anyone really say that their relationship with Jesus is perfect?
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