It makes me want to cringe when people say, “God will not give you more than you can bear.”
When life is hard, I am battle worn, the amount of problems are stacking up, and threatening to topple... I struggle to not correct them. I want to sweetly but firmly let them know that “this” is way more than I can bear! I respectfully disagree with the idea that God will not give us more than we can bear. In First Corinthians 10:13 says, the Apostle Paul reminds believers, "God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond you can bear.”
What it does not say is, “God will not give you more than you can bear."
The two phrases are completely different topics: endurance vs. temptation.
So why do I cringe every time someone tries to tell me God won't give me more than I can bear? Paul tells us later on after living a life of being shipwrecked, thrown out of town, beaten and even imprisoned for living as a Christian that, “We were crushed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead,” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). Paul was telling us that his troubles were beyond his ability to endure, but then he reveals to us the solution! In his troubles is he started to rely on God and no longer his own willpower to get him through.
Mommas, we are not meant to try to push through life’s overwhelming issues on our own willpower. Our inner strength will fail us at some point. This idea that God would not give us more than we can handle is giving us too much credit. This idea is self-focused, giving us the credit of our own strength to endure, and ultimately not allowing us to fully surrender the issue to the Lord. At times, the Lord allows us to come to a place where we realize the burden is too heavy for us to carry. Sometimes we are one straw away, one broken appliance away, one rainy day away, from collapsing under the weight, so we can learn how to cast our care upon Him and rely on Him to get us through.
Scripture also reminds us when overwhelmed to “Humble (admit you need God's help) yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up (help you) in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you”(1 Peter 5: 6). The key is that we humble ourselves, we admit we cannot bear life’s burdens in our own strength, and we let them go by praying that we trust God to take care of it. In this way, we surrender control to the Lord, ask Him/look up scriptures in the Bible on how to handle the situation, then let go.
I am so thankful that the Lord of the universe not only invites us to cast our cares upon Him but delights in his children (you!) trusting Him enough to solve them. I once heard someone say, "the Lord calls us His sheep, and sheep were never meant to carry burdens".
Friend, we were never meant to "power through" exhausted and weary thinking the burden is within our ability to cope through. Instead, time and time again scripture tells us to cast our worries on God.
I can personally attest that when you trust Him with all our heart and wait patiently resting, he will never fail you. Jesus is walking with you through the valleys for His love for you lasts forever, thick and thin. When you surrender your worries to God, He will keep you going!