More Than I Can Handle? You Bet!

One of the best and worst things about working for a church is the amount of people you get to know. This can be said about any large organization, but with the church you tend to develop deeper and more authentic relationships. As I said, this is both good and bad - good because watching people grow in their relationship with God and others is an awesome thing to experience. Bad, because we live in an imperfect world where people experience the difficult circumstances of life.

We seem to be facing the latter during the past few weeks. We talked tonight about how things have been quite challenging since we entered and exited the 21 Day Challenge of prayer and fasting. Bryan taught about this concept again tonight - the myth that God won't give you more than you can handle. It was an awesome message, and I know many people were given some peace and comfort from God tonight. The truth is, God will give you more than you can handle because He wants us to learn to trust Him - not rely on our own capacity to deal with the junk in our life.

One of our own staff, Jeremiah Dietiker has been facing his own challenges lately. He's had a bout of pneumonia the past three weeks, then the doctors thought he had the flu, and now he's spending the night at Parkland hospital as they try to find out why he has been running a fever for the past 24 days or so and why he is having severe abdominal pains. So much pain that a guy who laughs at the every word has needed a morphine drip. Is God giving Jeremiah more than he can handle? In a word? Yes. But that's why Jeremiah has an incredible wife, an awesome church family, and some of the best friends in the world. He doesn't have to deal with everything by himself. Keep praying for him and Heather.

Does God give us more than we can handle? Absolutely. But He is also a loving Father who will help us pull through and conquer anything that He wants to overcome. God can work through anything and anybody if we'll just get out of the way and let Him. God's best is yet to come!

"Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner. So if you find life difficult because you're doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust him. He knows what he's doing, and he'll keep on doing it."

1 Peter 4:12,13,19 (MsgB)