God won't give you more than you can handle
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I think we can all agree that words are important and the way that we use them are equally as important. I also believe that we are also realizing more and more that the particular words we use are crucial to express what we mean and help others understand what it is that we are trying say. So while saying that God won’t give you more than you can handle might seem like something to say to help boost someone’s confidence when they are going through a particularly difficult time, there are words in there that make it troubling.
The words that are actually troubling are the same word, and since there is only one word repeated twice then I bet you can guess what it is: YOU. This phrase implies that when we go through the stresses and difficulties of life, like we talked about last week, then we do it on our own. The first that popped into my mind was teaching someone something new like driving a car. We don’t just tell someone to read up on driving a car and after they have read the book then they can just get in a car and be a licensed driver. Do you remember what it was like the first time you got into a car and started driving? Or do you remember teaching your teenager how to drive by sitting in the passenger seat and having them drive in a parking lot or around your neighborhood for hours before you even dared letting them on an actual road? I remember getting in the driver seat and being excited, but even more nervous than I was excited.
Letting someone drive before they have the confidence and experience and skills of driving is really just setting them up for disaster. Can you imagine just handing the keys to someone who has never driven before and telling them they can handle it on their own? Plus how many times do we tell each other or even ourselves that we don’t want to give someone more than they can handle? Or that you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew? Oftentimes when we say those kinds of things we either don’t have the skills or we are saying that this is more than a one person job. I can do this but it’s going to take more than one person to do it and do it right.
Which brings us back to what is so troubling about this phrase: you. By either directly saying or implying that God is going to put you through something and you have to do it on your own, is saying that God let you read the instruction manual of faith is trusts that you have it perfectly figured out and that you don’t need God to accompany you when you go through those stresses and difficulties of life. I don’t remember anywhere where Jesus tells us that we will be alone. In fact there are so many instances where Jesus tells us that we are never along that we would be here for a very long time if we looked at all of them. The two that come to mind immediately are the Great Commission from the end of Matthew’s gospel where Jesus says that even though he is leaving he will be with us forever until the end of the age. The other is from John’s gospel 14:15-17 where Jesus tells the disciples that he won’t leave the disciples as orphans. Instead of being alone and going through things alone he will send them a companion or advocate who will be with them forever and that the companion is the Spirit of Truth. He goes on to say much like in the great commission that he will also live in us and will reveal himself to us.
If we also look at the reading for today which is also from John and we hone in on the last verse we really get a glimpse of another way to understand things. This is essentially the last conversation Jesus has with his disciples before he is arrested and goes to the cross. He knows what is about to happen and that it is going to happen, so he tells the disciples very plainly that while there is going to be distress in the world they will have peace in Jesus. That they should be encouraged not discouraged because through this action he has conquered the world. Even though the disciples are not fully prepared for it, and I am sure they don’t even fully understand what is about to happen, Jesus takes this time with them to let them know they are going to be ok.
Can you imagine the amount of stress they would be going through as Jesus went through his arrest and beyond? The sense of loss of a friend, a teacher, savior, and so much more must have been a lot to endure. Jesus knew that they were going to go through so much in the coming days watching it happen and then the sense of not knowing what would come next. So Jesus takes this time to set aside the way he usually spoke in parables or riddles so that they could have this real understanding of what he wanted them to know. Now that he has done that they know he has come from God and is returning to God, but more importantly will be with them and give them peace.In that way they, and us will have peace with Jesus even though we experience distress, strife, and difficulties. Again, we see from this passage that the peace we have, or in other words the ability to handle what comes our way is not that we will handle it on our own, but that Christ is with us.
So while we, like the disciples, will most certainly face trials and tribulations, we know that we don’t walk this world alone. We also know that through his life, death and resurrection, that Jesus conquered the power of sin and death, and while they are still forces that cause suffering and sadness we can turn to the God who watches over us, the Christ who lived among us, and the Spirit who accompanies us when we do experience distress in our life. And never forget that God gave us this community as a part of this journey of faith as well. You weren’t called to walk this path alone. God is here for you and so are we. Never forget that when you feel that you are going through more than YOU can handle, there is a community of believers and a God of peace who is here for YOU every step of the way. Amen.