More than I can handle

I'm sure you're familiar with the saying, "God never gives you more than you can handle."

Or maybe you're familiar with this one: "God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."

Have you heard these? Do you believe them?

I've heard these a lot. Over and over throughout the years. This year, this year that has been plagued by difficulties and challenges for me, I'm sure these statements have been made to me at one point or another in an attempt to comfort me. And actually I'm probably sure I've said something similar to myself in my head in an attempt to reassure myself I can do "this," I can handle "this."

The past 365 days or so have especially made me cringe at these sayings because there is a lot that has occurred in my life that I cannot handle. (Is it just me or have you noticed that people never want to admit they can't handle things? Why is this? I think it's because we are focused on ourselves, we feel like we should be in control, and, therefore, we feel like we're failures if we're not).

This week I read something that was a bit of an eye opener to me that I just loved. (I hate to reference Oprah but this was like an "ah-ha!" kind of moment.) I can't remember where I read it because quite frankly I read from an overwhelming number of books, blogs, and online devotionals every day. So I can't take credit for the following ideas; therefore, this may be a bit of plagiarizing. I hope you don't mind. :) Here it is:

You see the saying, "God never gives you more than you can handle," is rubbish for lack of a better word.

It's not true.

God DOES give us more than we can handle.

Why would he give us more than we can handle? Because it makes us rely on him, lean on him, trust in him.  Because the truth is we weren't created to do this life apart from Him (even though we may try). When we have the mindset that God only gives us what we can handle, we put ourselves in control, we rely on ourselves, we ignore God, and quite frankly, in my experience, that doesn't really work out well. Life is more than we can handle sometimes, and God can use that to bring us to our knees so we turn to him with our problems.

Again, I feel like I am a testament to this. There have been many times this year when my life was more than I could handle. I had to (and continually have to) rely on Jesus who can handle it. I am not in control. He is. I am not strong. He is. I do not understand. He does. I can't. He can.

In our weakness, we become strong because of God (2 Cor. 12:10).

So the next time you feel that your circumstances are overwhelming and you feel like you can't handle everything that's on your plate, maybe you really can't handle it, and God's trying to tell you to turn to him, give everything over to him, and go through your trials with him.