Home Pastors Articles for Pastors God WILL Allow More Than You Can Bear (Alone)

God WILL Allow More Than You Can Bear (Alone)

I occasionally like to correct a myth I have heard all my life.

How many times has someone said to you, “God will never put more (trials) on you than you can bear”?

I challenge you to show me that in the Bible.

God WILL allow more than you can bear.

He will.

The problem I have with that lie is that—as innocently as it is given—even offered mostly as encouragement—it’s not encouraging at all.

The myth makes so many believers wonder why they can’t handle their problems—falsely believing they should be able to—because someone once told them the lie that God would not put more on them than they could handle.

Than THEY could handle. And that’s the key problem with that phrase.

Yes, we do have the promise that we will not be “tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13), but we need to understand what that verse is saying. It says that God will not allow Satan to bring temptation, or enticement to sin, into our life where 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—through His Holy Spirit in us. God wants us to live holy—just as Christ who calls us is holy—and so He provided a Helper for us to resist temptation.

But that verse has nothing to do with the amount of struggles we will face as believers.

Consistently, throughout the Bible, I read where God allowed more trials, more pressure, than His children could bear.

Elijah, the powerful prophet of God who held back the rain, had a time when the trial must have been bigger than his ability to handle it. Consider this verse: “The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you” (1 Kings 19:7).

Once when Paul wrote to the people at Corinth (2 Corinthians 1:8), he told them that he and his followers faced trials “far beyond our ability to endure.”

David, the great war hero and man after God’s own heart, told the Lord that “troubles without number surround me” and “and I cannot see.” He couldn’t see clearly because he was overwhelmed with the storms of life!

Another time David said, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.” (Oh how I identify with David there!)

Jehoshaphat prayed, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). It sounds like he was facing more than he could handle—on his own.

Are there times when God allows more troubles in your life than you can bear? Absolutely! Positively!