Number One:
“God does not give us anything we cannot handle”. I DISAGREE. I don’t mean to be brash or harsh, but I’ve found that in my life God gives me things that I can’t handle all the time, and He is there to pull me through them. If God only gave me things that I could handle, then what is the reason for faith? Why would I believe in Him and submit myself to Him? I wouldn’t, because I would be able to accomplish and handle everything set before me. I would have zero dependence on the Father. I would be an emancipated minor.
So the statement above, though partly true, is not worded correctly. What it should say is, “God does not give us anything He can’t handle”. He gives us things that we can’t handle all the time simply to draw us into a reliance on Him so that when we come through the other side, we know without a shadow of a doubt that He deserves all the glory and praise for it.
And to go even further, if bringing God glory is the chief goal in my life, as I believe it is for Christians, then I should be praying for, not against circumstances and trials beyond my capabilities to overcome, because when I do come out on the other side, God has bolstered my testimony. He has given me a more glorious story to tell as I go about my walk speaking to people about the amazing things He has done for me.
“Give thanks in all circumstances,” for God is bolstering your testimony and preparing you to change someone’s heart with your story.
Number Two:
Something else that I see a lot of people praying is for the Lord to ‘bless them’. Now I think this is a wonderful prayer and God will be faithful to answer it. But once again, in my life I am finding that this prayer is incomplete. I don’t just find myself praying for God’s blessing, but I pray that God would not bless me beyond what I can handle.
At the end of the trial when I receive the blessing, I pray that I would not be blessed so far to the point that I would try and steal the glory from God and covet the rewards for myself. A blessing can be more dangerous then trial if we misunderstand who deserves the glory for it. I always need to caution myself when a blessing comes along. I caution myself to make sure that the blessing would flow right through me and on to the Father who truly deserves the glory for it.
The conclusion I draw from this then is that our logical instincts tell us to pray for less trials and more blessings, but maybe the real prayer that will bring God the most glory would be less blessings and more trials. The scariest prayer in the world is, “God, bring me to a place of full dependence on you”. But the ‘so that’ in that prayer is one of the most beautiful, “so that I would know without a shadow of a doubt that you carried me through to the blessing, and that I could give testimony of your great power and glory to all the earth.”
It’s big, it’s bold, it’s countercultural, so there must be something to it.
-jon
“God does not give us anything we cannot handle”. I DISAGREE. I don’t mean to be brash or harsh, but I’ve found that in my life God gives me things that I can’t handle all the time, and He is there to pull me through them. If God only gave me things that I could handle, then what is the reason for faith? Why would I believe in Him and submit myself to Him? I wouldn’t, because I would be able to accomplish and handle everything set before me. I would have zero dependence on the Father. I would be an emancipated minor.
So the statement above, though partly true, is not worded correctly. What it should say is, “God does not give us anything He can’t handle”. He gives us things that we can’t handle all the time simply to draw us into a reliance on Him so that when we come through the other side, we know without a shadow of a doubt that He deserves all the glory and praise for it.
And to go even further, if bringing God glory is the chief goal in my life, as I believe it is for Christians, then I should be praying for, not against circumstances and trials beyond my capabilities to overcome, because when I do come out on the other side, God has bolstered my testimony. He has given me a more glorious story to tell as I go about my walk speaking to people about the amazing things He has done for me.
“Give thanks in all circumstances,” for God is bolstering your testimony and preparing you to change someone’s heart with your story.
Number Two:
Something else that I see a lot of people praying is for the Lord to ‘bless them’. Now I think this is a wonderful prayer and God will be faithful to answer it. But once again, in my life I am finding that this prayer is incomplete. I don’t just find myself praying for God’s blessing, but I pray that God would not bless me beyond what I can handle.
At the end of the trial when I receive the blessing, I pray that I would not be blessed so far to the point that I would try and steal the glory from God and covet the rewards for myself. A blessing can be more dangerous then trial if we misunderstand who deserves the glory for it. I always need to caution myself when a blessing comes along. I caution myself to make sure that the blessing would flow right through me and on to the Father who truly deserves the glory for it.
The conclusion I draw from this then is that our logical instincts tell us to pray for less trials and more blessings, but maybe the real prayer that will bring God the most glory would be less blessings and more trials. The scariest prayer in the world is, “God, bring me to a place of full dependence on you”. But the ‘so that’ in that prayer is one of the most beautiful, “so that I would know without a shadow of a doubt that you carried me through to the blessing, and that I could give testimony of your great power and glory to all the earth.”
It’s big, it’s bold, it’s countercultural, so there must be something to it.
-jon
