"God Won't Give You More than You Can Handle"

Correction for a Misleading and Unchristian Cliche

A handful of years ago, during a week in which I felt extremely weak and extremely overwhelmed, I came across an image on social media. (I can’t say who first created it, but I’d love to give them the credit. Let me know if you know!) At the top of the image were the words of a cliche we sling around a lot during hard times:

God wont’ give you more than you can handle.

But, the words were crossed out, like this:

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

Reader, I hope you were intrigued, as I was. I kept reading.

Beneath those crossed-out words were the words of the apostle Paul to the Corinthian church. Poor Paul, needing to defend the legitimacy of his ministry, which seemed to entail a lifelong membership to profound suffering. Here’s what he wrote:

We do not want you to be uninformed…about the troubles we experienced…We were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself…But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.¹

Friend, at this I laughed and cried hysterically.

It seems our inability to handle things is precisely the point of God’s resurrection power.

We can’t handle some circumstances. We can’t survive them on our own, change them, wish away them, or keep ourselves from drowning. But God can and God does, so that when we do survive/thrive/rise above, it is “clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”²

If we’re fortunate enough to experience God’s resurrection power, we’ll likely be “under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure.”

Maybe it’s time we give up the idea of relying on ourselves and rely on our God who raises the dead.

You can’t handle it. But God can.

1. 2 Cor. 1:8,9

2. 2 Cor 4:7

Thanks for reading. I’m a book-obsessed pastor, seminarian, podcaster, author, and life and leadership coach. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.