Have you ever reached the point, where you were facing something that was too big for you? Like Job, caught in the wake of crushing pain and loss. With breathtaking power the storm swept in and wiped away everything, leaving you with only broken pieces, and you find it hard trusting God again. Maybe you find yourself questioning what you did wrong, that age-old phrase “God doesn’t give you more then you can handle” mocks you in your head. You wonder if that were true, why did you crumble? What did you do wrong?
When life is sunshine and rainbows that phrase can feel like a motivational piece, but in the midst of the storm when you’re tossed in a frothing sea with only that to hold on to it falls short. Crumbling in the churning water to join the silt at the bottom.
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Trusting God When It’s Too Big For You
Does God give us more then we can handle? The answer is yes. Daily, in our personal lives, in our relationships, in our spiritual battles so that we run back to Him. He brings us to situations that are too big for us so that we must trust God and allow Him to stretch us, and mold us. Like an expert potter, He applies pressure not to break us, but to mold us. To remove the excess and fashion us into what we were made to be. Growth requires pain, it requires stepping into the water that you know you can’t touch the bottom and clinging to Him.
Many of us believe that because we are Christians, the bad things in life won’t touch us. That we can’t fall, that life will never bring us to our knees. But in fact, it’s the opposite. Job and Namoi are just two examples of men and women trusting God when life was too hard, and their world had crumbled.
You Can Trust God To See You Through
A friend of mine was working with her church’s VBS and was telling me about the lesson they were attempting to teach the children. Broken down the whole message was that when you are a Christian you may fall, but you will bounce back. Sadly that just isn’t true, yes God will never leave you or forsake you. But it isn’t as simple as “bouncing back” you will never be the same person you were before you faced the storm, you’ll bear those scars for the rest of your life. Mentally and spiritually you will never be in the same place again. You are older, more seasoned and survived by the mercy of God. You can trust God to see you through, but who you are on the other side of this won’t be the same.
The Bible promises that the Lord will restore what the locusts have eaten, so often we think this means giving us back what we have lost. But restorations don’t look like what they did before. Yes, God blessed Job after this season we find him at the beginning of the book of Job, but he didn’t get the same family, or friends, or belongings that Job had before restored. But God does not leave him in this place, this season of pain.
Trusting God When Life Is Falling Apart
Often I see Christians carrying God will never give you more then you can handle like a chosen weapon. But that phrase isn’t even in the Bible. In Job’s own power he couldn’t get through the storm he was facing, he couldn’t restore what he had lost. Instead of only allowing us to experience the amount of pressure that we can handle, and letting us walk through life in our power. Declaring that we can handle it all, God allows us to walk through seasons when it is too heavy and we are forced to let Him take care of it. Seasons that require trusting God, over what we can see and feel.
God has been there all along wanting to carry us, but we want to be independent and do it on our own. Perhaps this season you are experiencing is to let you reach the point of surrender. In our effort not to look weak we try to move the mountain on our own when we were never meant to. Is it time? Time to stop trying to do this on your own? To surrender the steering wheel, and the time frame, the results, and even what the restoration looks like on the other side to your creator and allow Him to handle it. God will never allow you to walk to a place that HE can’t handle.
Job Trusts God When His Life Falls Apart
Part of why I love Job is the raw honesty of the season that comes after the wake of a brutal storm, we can find so much of life in these pages. From the faith of Job to continue praising the Lord and trusting God in the immediate wake of the storm, to the well-meaning advice of friends and family that fall short of the need, as Job attempts to defend himself and finally, we come to the anger. Anger at the situation he’s in. And anger at the friends who accuse him of not having enough faith, of being unrepentant and full of folly.
Have you ever noticed that when we are down, the people around us that should know us best are often the ones that deliver the final blow? Like sharks, they circle looking for the kill and delivering blow after blow. We find ourselves in a position of trying to defend ourselves and answer their accusations with the last of our strength. Instead of praising God in the midst of the storms, we find our focus shifted to a battle we can never win.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean bad things aren’t going to happen. It doesn’t mean there is some kind of magic shield that will keep us from getting hurt, we may even be knocked to our knees. But it’s when all we have is in shatters, in the midst of the darkest days of your life, when you are on your knees with the full weight of the storm on your shoulders. Sinking deeper and deeper into the mud, it’s your faith in this season to turn to God and say “I can’t do this,” and trusting God to step into the gap and handle what is too big for us.
Trusting God Through Life’s Storms
This is the lesson of the storm, to learn not to handle the bad stuff on our own but to turn it over to our father. To trust God to turn the pain, the anguish, the brokenness into a lighthouse in the midst of someone else’s storm.
We may not understand now why the pain was necessary, we may not understand why we have to walk through the storm. It may seem dark, you may see the cracks form from the stress. You may not see the way out, and it may feel like it will all end here in this broken place. But God will never leave you, this is a refining, a molding. He’s already planned what’s on the other side. The restoration is already ready to begin. Keep trusting God to finish the work that He has begun.
There is always a purpose in our storm, and sometimes it’s not even for us. Sometimes it’s because someone is going to need to hear the lessons that you learned walking through this place so they can keep the faith walking through theirs. Instead of clinging to the illusion that you can handle it cling to your savior. Rest in the knowledge that despite the pain, despite the loss this is not where it ends. Your God is still in the way making business, still ready to take the weight that you’ve been carrying, still handling what we can’t.
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You are so right that God often leads us to situations that are bigger than we can handle. That’s when we learn to lean on HIS strength and not our own 💗
Yes! So true!
A powerful reminder of the reasons we need to trust God even when life is hard.
Thank you!
Thank you for this, I have been facing a hard time and this is what I needed. It is true we are clay and he is the sculptor, in the hardest times its can be hard to see what he is doing but we need to trust and have faith in his plans!
You’re so welcome! Amen
With this i have been strengthened again and gain. God is the only solution.
We’re so glad!