2 Corinthians 1:8, 9 "For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead..."
How many times has someone said to you, “God will never put more on you than you can bear”? The problem with this statement is that it keeps so many believers wondering why they can’t handle their problems because when they get overwhelmed. Surely God would not put more on them than they could handle. Yet, sometimes it happens and we wonder why God has brought this upon us.
We do have the promise that you will not be “tempted beyond what you can bear” in 1 Corinthians 10:13, but we need to understand what that verse is saying. It reads, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
It says that God will not allow Satan to bring temptation, or enticement to sin, into our life that is too much for us to say no to it. When we are tempted to sin, God will make a way for us to resist it. That is because He wants us to live holy, just as Christ who calls us is holy. It does not imply that ptoblems bigger than we can handle personally will not affect us because they will. It doens't make you a sinner or backslider if you are overwhelemed, just human-a human dependent on God.
Paul said that "we were burdened beyond measure, beyond strength, so that we despaired even of life." In other words he was at the breaking point and could go no further without Divine favor. He needed a breakthrough.
Throughout the Bible God often allowed more trials and pressure than His children could bear.
-Elijah, the powerful prophet who prayed that God would send the rain had a time when the trial must have been bigger than his ability to handle it.
1 Kings 19:1-3 "And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there."
-The Psalmist said in Psalm 69:1, 2 " Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me."
He couldn’t see clearly, because he was overwhelmed with the storms of life!
-Jehoshaphat, because he was facing an attack from the combined military forces of Moab, Ammon, and others who had joined with them, prayed in 2 Chronicles 20:12:
"O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee."
So there are times when God allows more troubles in your life than you can deal with, even though that goes against the grain of what everyone normally says. In fact we've turned a powerful scripture into a myth to explain problems we can't handle. The fact is sometimes life throws more at us than we can handle, at least more than we can handle alone.
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