Wait right there. Surely no one is really building their lives on a foundation of platitudes, slogans and half truths? Yes, yes they are. If someone turns to and leans on sayings and quotes in times of difficulty, if they strengthen or fuel their relationship with God with them, and or if they maintain their recovery by using them, then that is exactly what is happening. We take the words of men, generalities that are only sometimes true, or aren't ever true, quote them and hang onto them like they are scripture truth and then fall to pieces believing we're failing spiritually, or that God is failing us, when things don't work that way.
I couldn't find the song that set me off, but in searching for it, I found another one that has the line But don't forget what He said, He said: "I won't give you more, more than you can take. And I might let you bend, but I won't let you break. And No-o-o-o-o, I'll never ever let you go-o-o-o-o." The song that started all this last night said that He'll never give us more than we can handle.
Well, James T. Kirk never, not in one series episode or feature film, said, "Beam me up, Scotty." Bogart's character in Casablanca never said "Play it again, Sam." The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" is never spoken by Holmes in the sixty stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And in sixty-six books inspired by the Holy Spirit, God never, not once, said that He'll not give us more than we can bear, handle, or take.
Not only does He not say it, His actions with men and women throughout scripture show the exact opposite. God seems to love to do just that. His specialty is to give us more than we can bear, handle or take. That's kind of the basis for the whole relationship. Jesus didn't say "I (or for that matter the Father) won't ask more of you than you can handle." He said, "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). I've never met anyone who really believed that they could handle what it would take to obey that.
In 2 Corinthians 1: 8-10 Paul writes For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.
And that's the issue and the point. Paul says I want you to know that we had trouble, more trouble than you could measure or that we could bear, handle or take. We didn't have the strength to deal with what was going on and we despaired to the point of thinking we'd be better off dead. We made ourselves ready to die, but we didn't die. We went through that so we would learn and so that we could tell and show you that it's not ourselves we rely on, but God. We couldn't handle it, but God can and did. He can and will save.
What's the big deal when self-help crap that sounds good and comforting but isn't true begins replacing truth in recovery and in Christianity? It's not that bad. So God didn't say it, but since we can do all things through Christ, it's kinda true, right? If we can endure all things that means that won't be more than we can handle. So relax.
Nope. Sorry. Can't do it. Won't relax about it, because it can get people killed. Someone trying to find freedom finds themselves facing more than they can imagine bearing, someone trying to walk with God finds themselves completely and totally overwhelmed, and then some well-meaning falsehood spreader says, "Hang in there. Don't give up. God won't give you more than you can bear/handle/take/carry/etc." And what happens then?
There are a few possibilities. One, the person becomes angry, because the situation is indeed more than they.....They become angry at God and angry at whoever said that crap who obviously doesn't understand what they are going through and feeling. "Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Yoda was right. Now they're suffering because they're overwhelmed and angry. It's actually worse.
Another possibility is that they begin to feel like a failure. If God won't give them more than they can handle, and it's obviously more than they can handle, then God must be expecting them to be able to handle it, and they aren't. Circular epic fail. Now they get to add the guilt and condemnation that comes from believing the lie that we let God down, disappointed Daddy, failed to be good enough, etc., to the overwhelming situation. Once again, things are worse.
Or perhaps they don't take it mean they are failing. No. Obviously they were never intended to be able to carry that load, so God is the one failing to keep His promise to protect them from too much. If God doesn't keep that promise, how many other promises will He break? God obviously can't truly be trusted, or He doesn't care about them enough to keep His word in their case. Regardless, there's no point in trusting God because they can't trust Him. That, like the other two is worse, because they lose faith in God based on His failing to keep a promise that He never made.
Maybe none of those negative things happen. Maybe they gut up, find the saying inspirational and motivational. They look deep within themselves, find a second wind and get through it, carry more than they thought they could, handle it, bear it, take the pain and endure the misery....that they were never meant to. They made it. They don't doubt God. They don't feel like a failure; in fact, just the opposite, they feel victorious. They're not angry or bitter. They feel like they learned a valuable lesson and have gotten stronger. They've learned a dangerous lesson, not a valuable one. They've learned to look within and to themselves. They've learned to gut up rather than to give it up to God. They've learned self-reliance, which is never ever part of what we are called to in Christianity. God doesn't ever want us independant and self-reliant. He wants us dependant and reliant upon Him for all we are and do.
But the one thing that isn't a possibility when someone listens to and believes that mess that God didn't promise, is that they don't go, Oh, I'm supposed to let Him carry it because I can't. I can rely on Him. He doesn't expect me to carry it. Like Paul, this shows me that I am not to look to myself to do it, but to trust God to carry, deliver and save.
Jesus said that those who are burdened and heavy laden can come to Him for help and relief from their load. That means that there will be times when we are burdened and overwhelmed and unable to carry the load ourselves. We're not supposed to figure out how to endure that load, how to keep going when it's too much, or anything like that. We are supposed to cry out to and come to Jesus. We are supposed to trade our burden for His calling. We are supposed to rely on grace and God to get through so that we can learn to trust Him and that when we are weak, He is strong. We are supposed to rely on Him and not ourselves, because He can handle what we are going through and we were never meant to.
God lets us encounter, and gives us, more than we can take, handle, bear so that we can see that we are not alone, not supposed to do it ourselves and that we can rely on Him. When it gets to be too much, we don't need to look within but to Him. We don't need to gut up. We need to give it up to God. And we were never ever meant to carry that weight.
The closest thing to that quote that God didn't say is that Paul did write that we would not be tempted beyond what we could bear. But there's a difference between temptation and struggle and facing situations that are too much for us. I can't; He can; I'll let Him eliminates the possibility of self help ever being the answer or the right response. God, contrary to popular belief, does not help those who help themselves. God helps those who rely on Him. When we can't take it anymore, we need to look to Jesus as our answer, our help and our refuge. For that matter, why wait till the breaking point with all the pain that goes with that? Let's give it to God from the start.
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