Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Welcome to our fifth and final week of our series Half-Truth. We may do a few short series over the summer so please stay with us. We are going to shift gears a bit this week and not speak about one of the basics of our faith but something you may hear in church: “God will not give you more than you can handle.” What is usually meant by that is God is in control and he brings everything together for his purposes and our happiness. There is no problem or setback or evil that God cannot use for his good. It is true that God will not give you more than you can handle in the sense that he will not abandon you.
Here’s the whole truth: God will not give you more than you can handle without his help. He will not give you any more than you can handle with his power. God allows more than people can handle all the time. Take a look at every character in the Bible: Abraham, Jonah, Moses, Jesus, Mary, Joseph. God has always given me more than I can handle often in my life, and even now with this construction project and the changes involved is more than I can handle.
There may be things going on in your life that are more than you can handle and God may be allowing them for a particular reason. We need to pray and discern what is God telling me through this situation? He allows it for a reason. The reason is different for each one of us. The apostles were also overwhelmed when Jesus told them to go out into the Sea of Galilee. They were doing the will of God and were completely overwhelmed. Why did Jesus send them out there? I think it was to bring them to their knees, to help them to see their utter incapacity to do anything in that situation. God often acts this way with us.
He never promised those who follow him that they would not be overwhelmed, or that he would not give us more than we can handle. Maybe now you have a burden that is too great for you, a financial one or a personal one or a health issue with someone close to you. Maybe you feel overwhelmed with work and home and that you are cheating both, or you feel totally incompetent to handle a crisis at home or in the office. God is allowing this for a reason.
In St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (4: 13-5:1) he acknowledges that he is getting beat up, frustrated from his weaknesses, shipwrecks, scourgings, etc. His outer self is wasting away, but his inner self is being renewed day by day by the hand of God. This momentary affliction is giving him an eternal glory beyond all comparison. We see only the transitory, not the eternal.
And he knows that God is doing something to his spirit, to his soul to help him. He states, “We are always courageous, although we know we are not home in the body.” So despite his problems he knows that he is on a journey back to God and that this earth is not his final home. Paul gives us a very important principle when he says, “For we walk by faith and not by sight.” Paul says the journey of faith is just that, it is a journey. We walk it. And we walk it by faith. In other words, we keep moving, even when we can’t see what is up ahead. We keep moving towards God even when we don’t see a solution. We trust in God even when the situation looks hopeless.
God gives you more than you can handle so that your faith can grow. Faith is a muscle that only grows when it is tested, tried, pushed, strained. Maybe you are in the middle of it or it is just beginning or just ending. Difficulties are part of life. You cannot avoid them. You have a choice when they happen: you can lean on God or on yourself. It can help you to go on your knees, or you can tough it out. Learn to lean on him, to beg his help. Things will go better.
Mary is standing in the gospel (Mark 3: 31-35) as she will stand with John in a few years in front of the cross. She perseveres in standing. She still has a long way to go before that moment. Her motherhood will be turned inside out as she suffers what every mother abhors: the destruction of the fruit of her womb.
She seeks him out and stands by him. It does not matter that she is slighted for she knows she has to go through her kenosis (self-emptying) like her Son. She pours out her motherhood by allowing him to be the property of all. More than anything she perseveres in standing by him.
Jesus has no intention to belittle her, in fact, he only states the truth: his family are those who will do the will of the Father. This is what compromises his new family. The love of a mother is subordinated to the first Commandment: you shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and all your strength. Love of God comes before everything, even our mothers, who we can love more if we love God first. The will of the Father is done by sitting with Jesus, by going to him. This is where we get our strength.