God's Strength & Grace

Spirituality Column #42
August 28, 2007
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

God’s Strength and Grace
By Bob Walters

“God will never give you more than you can handle.”

I beg to differ.

My dear friend Tim, who recently traveled the impossible road of watching his young wife – mother of their two young children – die of cancer, offered this startling observation:

“Of course God gives you more than you can handle,” Tim said. “Otherwise how would you ever learn what to give over to God?”

Tim is a solid, spiritual Christian – a Catholic – with a remarkable command of scripture. He heard that old saying so many times that he went to his Bible to find where it says God won’t give us more than we can bear. Tim discovered the Bible doesn’t say that.

First Corinthians 10:13 tells us God will never tempt us beyond what we can bear. Close, but temptation isn’t sickness or turmoil or even a problem until you give in to it – remember that Jesus fasted for 40 days and was tempted by Satan (Matthew 4) but remained holy.

In 2 Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul describes his own torment of the “thorn in my flesh” (v 4) and then (v 9) assures us the Lord’s grace is sufficient to bear whatever we may encounter.

Remember that part about grace; we are naked without it. But haven’t we all, at one time or another, encountered the seemingly unbearable?

Second Corinthians 4:10 is where the road gets really rough, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” And then in verse 12, “Death is at work in us.”

Death, I would say, is more than we can bear. Our own strength cannot combat death and the countless miseries of a fallen world, but God’s grace gives us life eternal.

God can handle what we can’t, just don’t forget He is there.

Knowing and trusting He is there is called “Grace.”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) isn’t so sure that just because a door closes, a window opens. However, he is sure God is with you regardless.