God doesn’t give us more than He can handle

This is the truth. Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord. None of us can do it on our own. Today maybe, even tomorrow, but not forever. One day, it will all become too much. We were not created to do it on our own.

Just to recap, that was the final paragraph of my last post. And then I promised that today, I would show you what this has looked like for me and what it is looking for me right now. I always find it difficult when I hear or read some teaching about God and there is no practical application. We hear phrases like ‘Put God first’, but are given no indication of what that actually means in practice. And I was challenged that it was the same with this phrase ‘Rely on God’s strength and not your own’. What does that look like in reality? And of course, now I’ve had a couple of days to reflect, I realise that although I do believe I aim for this in my life, it is really hard to put into words. Maybe that’s why the practical words about these spiritual attitudes of heart are often missing. Because finding the right words seems almost impossible.

And so I hope these random examples and reflections from my life make sense and throw some light on what it may mean to rely on God’s strength.

I’ve come to realise that for me, I will only ever rely on God’s strength when I am so far outside my comfort zone that I am beyond my own natural resources. And that this is where God wants me to live! Because if I have the resources within me to do what I need to do and have all that I need, then what role can God play in my life? Why ask God for my daily bread (in any sense, not just bread), if I have more than enough anyway? Peter’s faith only became faith in action when he stepped out of the boat onto the water – when he stepped out of the comfort zone of the boat and had to rely totally on Jesus before him.

We have to resist the temptation to live a small, manageable life and have to trust God enough to step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown with Him. I guess for us, that happened when we adopted our youngest two and took our total of kids up to five under ten years old! Everyone thought we were mad. It was mad. But we had thought about it a lot and prayed about it a lot and had asked God to stop it happening if it was not the right thing. He didn’t stop it (and it was in the end quite a miraculous process), and so it must have been the right thing in our eyes, but immediately, we felt completely overwhelmed. We had to get through every day living beyond our means – financially, emotionally, in terms of physical energy and having a calendar full of events that could never work even on paper.

Every day since then, we have felt stretched beyond what we can handle. That first year, I cried, literally cried, with exhaustion and frustration every single day. I can’t count the number of times I have sat head in hand and said ‘I can’t do this any more. This is too big for me. I can’t do this.’ It has felt like walking on water every single day – that if I lose faith and focus, I will sink and the waters will close in over my head and I will drown.

Yes, I’ve been strong on occasions. I’ve had to be strong for my kids and sometimes you find a superhuman strength from somewhere that helps you to fight for what they need. But that comes at a cost. That leaves you depleted. Less resilient. Less able to cope with immense stress when it comes the next time.

And so I have shown weakness. Plenty of it. I’ve called out for help from friends and professionals. We’ve accepted help wherever it has come from – bags of clothes left on the door step and other practical support. We’ve been to parenting support groups and both had counselling several times. We’ve asked for prayer from others and I prayed regularly for over a year with a friend from church who’s been a great support. We’ve had to let go of trying to be the best at anything and have had to resign ourselves to doing our best, even when that has been judged by others to not be good enough.

And so how has all this enabled me to rely on God for strength? Well, I’ve had to. I literally have taken on a life that I could not have managed to get through on my own. I am not superhuman. I am very, very human. I have had to believe that God is in control and God knows what He’s doing, even when I haven’t got a clue what’s going on. I’ve had to trust that God will give me what I need to get through the day, when at 9am, I’m already totally exhausted. I’ve had to trust that God holds the future and will continue to give us what we need for each day, when the future seems so scary and I feel like I am running out of resources.

‘By the grace of God, we will carry on.’

That’s a phrase I have clung on to. Repeated over and over and over again in my mind. That has been all that has kept me putting one foot in front of the other at times.

And when I’ve entered a difficult meeting or received a phone call from school or social services, I’ve sent out a cry of help to God.

I do not rely on my own strength, because I do not believe I have the strength on my own to face what I have to face. And as God sees me through each day with just enough for that day, I guess a resilience starts to become embedded. When has God ever let me drown? Never! I can trust He will give me what I need today because He has seen me through every other day.

At times, I am weaker than I would like to be. Like now for example. I feel physically and emotionally depleted. Less able to cope than normal. At times like these, I have to rely even more on God to get me through the simplest of tasks – to get me round the supermarket or get me through my son’s birthday. I have to reduce my expectations of what I can achieve and be kind to myself. I have to be honest with others about how anxious I’m feeling and trust that they will respect that.

Sometimes it’s a sheer act of will to keep my eyes on Jesus as I’m walking towards him on the turbulent water. If I lose sight of the fact that He is there to guide and protect me, then I look around at all there is to do and all the emotional demands and I panic and anxiety overwhelms me and I start to drown in it all. But if I manage to keep my eyes on God’s promises to always be with me and see me through, then I get through to the end of the day, overwhelmingly grateful to God for all the good things He has given me in that day.

People say God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. He gave us more than we could handle. More than we can handle on our own that is. That’s how it should be. I’m grateful for that because it has forced me to rely on God in ways I would never have done so if life had not been so tough. God does not give any of us more than He can handle. That’s the truth and the joy of it.

I don’t believe God wants any of us to have small, comfortable, manageable lives. Because what role does He have to play in a life like that? God wants us to take on more than we can humanly handle, so that the glory goes to Him. So that others can see that God is at work. Of course, that doesn’t mean saying yes to everything – I have often prayed (and meant it) ‘Let your will be done’ and then ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ It doesn’t mean taking on everything but it does mean taking the risks that God wants us to take and taking on what seems crazy to the world.

It’s not comfortable living out here beyond what I feel I can manage. I’m faced every day with feeling that life is beyond me. I have to face those thoughts that I have taken on too much and have to actively trust that God knows what He is doing.

That’s the reality for me of living each day relying on God’s strength and not my own.