{"id":8744,"date":"2014-04-22T01:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T08:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doorposts.com\/blog\/?p=8744"},"modified":"2014-04-21T23:46:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T06:46:33","slug":"more-than-you-can-handle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doorposts.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/22\/more-than-you-can-handle\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than You Can Handle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Post by Daniel Forster<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Boy<\/p>\n

Whoever said \u201cGod won\u2019t give you more than you can handle\u201d?<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re taking care of little people, every day feels like more than you can handle.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re making progress on something in the kitchen, only to find that in the last 10 minutes of silence, a misguided helper has dusted all of the family room furniture with flour.<\/p>\n

You worked hard to make a fun lunch for the children, but no one wants to eat it.<\/p>\n

After getting kids in pajamas, brushing their teeth, reading stories, tucking them in, and then handling last-minute requests for drinks of water, trips to the bathroom (or anything else they can think of to delay bedtime), you\u2019d much rather go to bed yourself than finish cleaning the kitchen.<\/p>\n

The morning you finally get to sleep in is the morning that your toddlers decide to wake up and crawl all over your bed (and you).<\/p>\n

I realize these \u201chardships\u201d are pretty mild, compared to what some of my friends face, but this is life at our house right now. I know I\u2019m a weenie if I complain about this stuff while other parents are doing all this alone as a single parent, or adding homeschooling to the mix, or maybe giving up on home routines entirely to spend weeks in a hospital with a child struggling for his life.<\/p>\n

Clearly, trials can come in many shapes and sizes. Some are harder than others. But they all take their toll, wearing us down and tempting us to be discouraged (or to at least lock ourselves in the bathroom for five minutes of peace and quiet).<\/p>\n

Does God give us more than we can handle?<\/p>\n

Yes, He does.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but He does it on purpose.<\/p>\n

I think He wants us to see how much we need Him. Just like we can\u2019t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps in regards to our eternal salvation, neither can we just decide<\/i> to be strong in our duties as parents (no matter what the self-help books say).<\/p>\n

\"boy<\/p>\n

In every area of life, God wants us to see our weakness and our inability, not so we’ll be discouraged, but so we’ll admit our dependence on Him. We\u2019re most likely to ask for His help when we\u2019re at the end of our own rope.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re feeling overwhelmed, that\u2019s evidence that God is drawing you towards Himself. Instead of trusting in your own strength or wisdom, He wants you to lean on Him. When we feel empty, tired, or in need of strength, we need to take refuge in our all-powerful God:<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary<\/b>; his understanding is unsearchable.\u201d (Isa. 40:28)<\/p>\n

\u201cNow to him who is able to do far more abundantly<\/b> than all that we ask or think\u2026\u201d (Eph. 3:20a)<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God<\/b>\u2026\u201d (Ps. 62:11)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he said to me, \u201cMy grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.\u201d Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me<\/b>. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.\u201d (2 Cor. 12:9-10)<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust in the Lord forever, for the <\/b>Lord<\/b> <\/b>God<\/b> is an everlasting rock<\/b>.\u201d (Isa. 26:4)<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you, O <\/b>Lord<\/b>, my strength<\/b>.\u201d (Ps. 18:1)<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you<\/b>.\u201d (Jer. 32:17)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Jesus looked at them and said, \u2018With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible<\/b>.\u2019\u201d (Matt. 19:26)<\/p>\n

Clearly, God is the one who has it all together. By faith, we know there\u2019s nothing HE can\u2019t handle. So instead of looking inside ourselves and trying to drum up more inspiration or energy from inside, we need to ask God for strength from outside ourselves. <\/b>He wants us to admit our weakness and depend completely on Him. Admitting our dependence on God is not weakness; it\u2019s where we find real strength.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(I’ll be giving a workshop on “Parenting in the Strength God Supplies” this weekend at the Family Discipleship & Homeschooling Conference<\/a> in Redmond, WA.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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