Lie: "God won't give me more than I can handle."
Before you bristle or despair at reading this, hear me out. I have heard well-meaning Christians tell this to other Christians who were going through hard times more than once. They mean to comfort them, but I believe that they are deceiving them and in so doing depriving them of real comfort which comes from a truth far better than this.
See, there are a few implications which come with this lie, and all of them are wrong.
1. God allows trials to come into my life and then leaves me to handle them. This kind of assertion leads one to think that God may push me right up to the edge but won't push me off. Now I'm here dealing with this by myself, and even though I'm staring down into a pit of misery, death, or the unknown, I'm somehow supposed to be comforted because God didn't let me fall in.
2. If I can handle them, then the trials really won't be that bad. They won't overwhelm me. It is rarely a comfort to someone to downplay their trials, because often we do feel overwhelmed. We do think that we can't get through something on our own. Telling me that I can is the same as telling me that I've got to academically change my feeling of being overwhelmed. I have to somehow psyche myself into thinking that I can, you know, the power of positive thinking? This is not what it means to exercise faith because it's all about ourselves. And, believe me, when I'm really down, mustering up the energy to say "I think I can" is at best a meager and short-lived kind of comfort.
3. Whoever says "God won't give you more than you can handle" is going to be tempted not to pray for me because, after all, they're thinking that it will all work out find for me.
This lie is a spin-off of something true. In the Bible tells us that "God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able . . . " (1 Corinthians 10:13). This verse has to do with the temptation to sin, not with the experience of trials. It means that God never forces us into sin; even though the world is evil, there is always a way out of sinning when tempted. This is a comfort, but it is also a reminder that we are responsible to watch and pray. There is no blaming God for our circumstances if we succumb to temptation and fall into sin.
The Bible is full of far more relevant verses for God's people who are simply going through a hard time. God does not leave us at the edge alone, only promising not to push us off, for it says in Isaiah 43:2-4:
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I have given Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your place.
Since you are precious in My sight,
Since you are honored and I love you,
I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life.
The comforts go on and on. I encourage you to read the whole chapter, but verse two is a pretty good summary--"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine." He is with me. He loves me, in fact. He has given up other nations just to have me. This is your real comfort, O trembling child of the new Israel. Say it to yourself over and over when you feel alone, and remember also this second comfort:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
This is what Paul learned when he was going through a trial which God would not take away. The truth is that trials are hard and we often can't handle them on our own, but sometimes the whole point of the trial is to teach us that very fact. We're supposed to look outside ourselves for the abundant grace which Jesus has to offer us and with which He fills up our weaknesses. Paul goes on to say,
"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (:10).
Notice also that in verse 7, we learn that Paul's trial was from Satan. Let's not allow ourselves to think consciously or subconsciously that God comes up with these trials for us. They're hard, sometimes they're awful, and they're the kind of things that Satan loves, not God. But we know that God is much more powerful than Satan and allows him to work--for a little while, not forever--all the while turning them into good.
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