The Lie We Love to Believe: The Truth About What You Can Handle
We’ve all heard it—maybe from a friend, a well-meaning coworker, or even our own lips:
“God never gives you more than you can handle.”
It’s the kind of saying that slips easily into conversations where pain hangs heavily. Someone shares about the loss of a loved one, their crumbling marriage, the diagnosis that rocked their world, or the weight of anxiety they can’t seem to shake and we reach for something that sounds hopeful. Something that sounds like faith. So we say it.
But for the person sitting in the storm, those words can feel less like comfort and more like something you’d read on a bumper sticker. Hollow. Maybe even like an accusation: If God thinks I can handle this, then why can’t I? What if the sleepless nights, panic, heartbreak, ALL of it, are more than can I bear?
I hate to burst your bubble, but that comforting phrase we’ve all clung to?
God never actually said that.
So where do Christians seem to get that from? You may be thinking, “But Kasia, it’s in the Bible!” Oh friend, buckle up. Because I’m as passionate about clearing this one up as I am about the fact that red velvet is just chocolate with an identity crisis (don’t @ me). Somewhere along the way, we took a verse, added some red food coloring, and called it truth.
1 Corinthians 10:13—And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. (Emphasis mine)
Paul wrote that God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. The context here is about temptation, not suffering; sin, not sorrow. When we try to stretch that verse out to cover grief, trauma, or hardship, we put words in God’s mouth that He never spoke. We create an expectation that He never intended—to be strong enough to carry what He alone can hold.
Our culture sees “handling it” as managing or controlling a situation without emotionally breaking down. But God isn’t after your performance; He wants your dependence. In His upside-down kingdom, true strength looks like surrender. It looks like leaning on Him when you can’t stand on your own.
The Bible is full of people who were given more than they could handle!
David cried out, “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. . .I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.” (Psalm 38:4, 8, emphasis mine)
In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul admitted, “We do not want you to be uniformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, emphasis mine)
Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? He looked at what was ahead for Him and said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mark 14:34, emphasis mine)
These passages prove that God sometimes allows more than we can handle on own! If even the heroes of faith buckled under the weight, then maybe the point isn’t to prove our strength but to discover His.
God always wants us to draw closer to Him. When life is good and everything feels easy, we tend to drift and forget about how much we need Him. But when everything falls apart, we tumble down into the valley, and the pieces scatter faster than we can gather them, that’s when we finally remember: we were never meant to carry it all.
Jonah remembered from down, down, down (if you know, you know) in the belly of a fish, “In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. . .When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You, Lord” (Jonah 2:2, 7, emphasis mine). Sometimes God lets us sink so low that the only place left to look is up. When I think back on my life, that seems to be the place where I have found Him most clearly.
Psalm 23:4— Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
The valley becomes holy ground, not because we’ve discovered how to get out of it all on our own, but because He’s there.
God also allows more than we can handle to remind us that His power is what sustains us, not our own. We weren’t created to be self-sufficient! C.S. Lewis once said that cars were made to run on gasoline, and humans were made to run on God. When we try to “handle” it all, we buy into the false idea that our strength is enough.
Paul knew this intimately. He begged God to remove the thorn in his flesh, but God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, emphasis mine). Sometimes the very thing we wish God would take away becomes the place where His strength works the hardest. He isn’t asking us to muscle through it; He’s inviting us to surrender through it. Could you exhaust yourself trying to row your boat across an entire ocean? Sure. But wouldn’t you rather raise your sail and let the Holy Spirit carry you instead? There’s something so incredibly beautiful about declaring, “I can’t do it, but God can.”
(More on this in Sacred Struggles: The Beauty Behind the Burden and When Comfort Isn’t the Goal: Growing Through God’s Refining)
As we lean more and more into God’s presence and strength, something starts to shift. Like exercising a muscle, our faith begins to stretch and strengthen. Just as James wrote, the testing of our faith produces endurance, shaping us into something steady and complete (James 1:2-4). A tested faith is a trusted faith. Remember how Paul described the hardship he endured in Asia? Let’s read a little more of that passage:
2 Corinthians 1:8-11—We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. (Emphasis mine)
Every time we reach the end of ourselves, we find the beginning of Him. And over time, those moments build a quiet confidence in our hearts—a faith that whispers, “I’ve seen His faithfulness before, and I’ll see it again.” Every trial builds a track record that shows not only us, but others what His strength looks like through human weakness.
Here’s what God actually promised: not that life would be light, but that He would be the light in it.
He never said the waters wouldn’t rise.
He said they wouldn’t sweep you away.
He never said the fire wouldn’t come.
He said you wouldn’t be burned.
He never said the valley would be short.
Only that you wouldn’t walk it alone.
If you’re reading this in the middle of something that feels impossible, if you’re bone-tired, heart-heavy, and wondering how much longer you can keep holding on, please hear me: you aren’t weak for feeling this way. You’re human. God created lungs to breathe the same way He created emotions to be felt. The same God who parted the Red Sea and calmed raging storms is standing beside you, completely unshaken, even when you aren’t. His help looks like quiet endurance, showing up in the middle of the mess, holding you together when everything else is falling apart. God promised to be your refuge and your strength, your ever-present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1).
So no, God never promised you wouldn’t face more than you can handle. But He did promise that nothing you face will ever be more than He can handle. And that makes all the difference.
John 16:33—“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Lord, when life feels heavier than my hands can hold, remind me that You never asked me to carry it alone. When I’m weak, be my strength. When I’m overwhelmed, be my peace. When I reach the end of what I can handle, meet me there with the fullness of who You are. Amen.