God WILL Give You More Than You Can Handle

“God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

I’m sure we’ve all heard this saying whether you attend church or not. It’s a common saying that many people lean on. We see it cross-stitched on pillows, we see it scrolling through our timelines on twitter, and people pat us on the back after we pour our heart out and say, “Don’t worry, God won’t give you more than you can handle.” I don’t know about you, but that statement provides me zero comfort when I’m in pain.

The reality is, God WILL give you more than you can handle. You will experience brokenness, pain, loneliness, confusion, loss, exhaustion and tragedy in this life. We will have moments where we feel like we are drowning. And this is typically when someone “conveniently” says to us, “but don’t worry, it will never be more than you can handle.”

THAT IS A BIG FAT LIE.

God will most definitely give us more than we can handle. That’s the whole point. It’s the moment where our weakness meets His strength. We can’t face trails in our lives without Him.

God has been teaching me lately that there is strength in brokenness. We need to come to Him in our brokenness. And I’m talking about the crying your eyes out in your car, makeup running down your face, hair a mess type of brokenness. Completely vulnerable, completely broken before the Lord.

2^nd Corinthians 12:10 puts it this way…

“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.”

How in the world are we supposed to DELIGHT in weakness?! To be completely honest, when I’m having a “crying alone in your car kind of moment” the last thing I want to do is delight in the pain I’m feeling. I am not an expert on this topic by any means, but I’ll be honest I am in a challenging season right now and God is teaching me how to let Him be my strength. His strength becomes our own.

Romans 8:26 says…

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

I love at the end of this verse how it says, “with sighs too deep for words.” I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that feeling. Sighs, thoughts, feelings, sorrows too deep for words. We don’t even know how to describe it. That’s the beautiful part, when the Holy Spirit intercedes and makes sense of all the things we don’t know how to begin to describe. God knows exactly how we are feeling and we don’t have to explain it loud to him, He already understands our soul’s desires.

I remember praying a few weeks ago, “God, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep trying to control everyone and everything. I am not perfect, and I am in desperate need of you. I am exhausted trying to heal myself. I feel like I’m drowning in my pain, and I can’t get my head above water. I don’t even know where to begin or how to rely on you for strength, but please speak to my heart and show me how. Please teach me how to rest in you.”

It’s so comforting to know that God doesn’t have any expectations of “where we should be”. He simply calls us to rest in Him. To get down on our knees and ask Him to teach us how to let him be our strength.

So, as I’ve been praying this prayer the past few weeks God has been quietly speaking to my heart and helping me be vulnerable with Him. He is helping me realize that it’s totally okay to not have it together all the time. (Shocking, I know right?!)

There is strength in stillness.

Stillness before our Creator who says to us, “I know this is too much for you to handle. That’s why you need me. Come to me in your brokenness and let me give your weary soul rest.”

So, what does it practically look like to rest in God and let him be our strength in our everyday lives?

I want to share with you some tips that have been SUPER helpful and healing for me when I feel weak and broken.

1. Rest in Him. Literally, take a deep breath and rest. Don’t try and fix everything or work everything out in your head. Allow yourself to sit in your pain for a little while if you need to and ask God to teach your heart how to rest in Him and His strength.
2. Allow yourself those “crying alone in your car” type of moments. Allow yourself those moments and begin to turn them into precious moments with our Lord. Pray out loud, scream out loud, whatever you need to do.
3. Find a friend or mentor to sit with you in your pain. We were not meant to walk through struggles in life alone. Be vulnerable with a friend and ask them to come along side you and lift you up when you are weak.
4. Do something that makes you feel strong. I have found that going on a run daily, and working out has been very therapeutic for me. Find something that makes you feel productive and strong and work it into your schedule.

 “We are never so healed that we don’t need Jesus every single moment of every single day.” -Christine Caine