Jan 24, 2016 Sermon: "God Will Give You More Than You Can Handle"

Stephen Baldwin

NT: 1 Cor 12.12-27

God Will Give You More Than You Can Handle

            Snowmageddon has changed everything this weekend.  Everything!  Even my sermon.  I’ll save what I had planned for next week.   

            Today, I just want to share something with you that I’ve been wrestling with for years.  It’s the saying, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”  Anyone ever said that to you?  And did it make you want to punch them in the face?  People say it out of genuine concern, I think, but I can’t think of a worse thing to say to a person going through trials and tribulation.  It patronizes their pain and belittles their experience. 

I know people who have more on their shoulders than anyone should.  People who just can’t catch a break.  People who just can’t get ahead.  People who never had a chance.  And I can’t believe that’s the way God wants it.  I’ve been wrestling with this for years, and in the middle of snowmageddon while using the snowblower, I finally found peace about it.  

            God will give you more than you can handle.  God will you give you and me and everyone who can’t catch a break more than we can handle.  How many times did you have to shovel your driveway these past two days, only to have it covered up again in a few hours?  I used the snowblower on our church parking lot, sidewalks, and street spots more times than I can count, and it just kept coming back.

 God gives us all more than we can handle sometimes.  It doesn’t mean we deserve the trials we face.  It doesn’t mean we’re lesser people.  It doesn’t mean God is teaching us a lesson we just can’t seem to learn.  It means we’re subject to the human condition, and we often are dealt a more difficult hand than we can handle…alone. 

I finally found a sense of peace about that idea yesterday, and it was because I saw what snowmageddon did to people.  It may have been too much for an elderly woman to handle, but the neighbor shoveled her walkway.  It may have been too much for the man without transportation to handle, but a friend took him to get groceries.  It may have been too much for even the man with a snowplow and a snowblower and a strong back to handle alone, but his wife made him a warm meal that kept him going all day. 

What I’m saying is that God does give us more than any one person can handle alone.  That’s why we have each other.  To handle together what we cannot handle alone.  Whether it’s snowmageddon or illness or trial or tribulation.   Life can be too much for all of us at times, but together, with God, we can face anything.  Amen.