Tuesday, September 13, 2011

“God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle”

No


The rest of the premise says, “So if you’re going through it, God must think you can handle it.” The possible origin of this “thought for the day” is confusion about Paul’s earlier encouragement that, “And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:12-14)

Paul also said that he and his co-workers “were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8b, 9)

God won’t let those of us who follow Jesus be tempted with more than we can resist by giving us a way out. Handling difficulties or trials is not about our ability but our reliance on God’s mighty power working in our behalf.