Does God Give Us More Than We Can Handle? - What To Do When It All Feels Like To Much

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All my young adult life, I have heard well-meaning people say things like:  “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” I was always baffled when circumstances came that were way more than I was capable of handling on my own.

When life becomes too much, how do we reconcile that with that familiar phrase?

God won’t give us more than we can handle…right?

Wrong.  

There is no verse in Scripture, at least none that I have found, that backs up this common claim.

I am not sure about whether or not God gives you more than you can handle, but I am confident that life indeed hands out more we can deal with in our strength. 

So what do we do when life hands us more than we can handle? What do we do when the circumstances are overwhelming us, and we feel like we are drowning in the chaos of our current realities?

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5 Things Loss Has Taught Me About God

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It can be tough to imagine any good coming from painful losses. My husband and I have suffered two miscarriages and the pain and shock they bring. After having walked through both of those hard seasons, I would love to share what I learned about the Father. 

I will start by saying when we lost our first baby in 2015 I blamed God. It was in that season I realized I wasn’t sure who He was or how He could be trusted. The next year was a healing journey for me, and the Father continued to pursue my heart and teach me about His nature and He response to loss. 

When we lost our second baby in 2017, I clung to my Father as best as one can when facing that kind of pain. Mike and I both, declared we would not blame Him for this loss, and we tried our best to invite Him into our mourning as we knew this grieved His heart too. 

We don’t understand it all. We don’t have everything figured out, but we have, from our losses, learned who He is and today I want to share. 

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How God Really Feels About You

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A sad reality is that tons of believers don’t actually know how the Father feels about them. We tend to make up these narratives, and we imagine that God responds to us the way that we would respond to us.

I lived quite a bit of my Christian life believing that God was this distant, Gandolf the Grey looking deity in the sky which looked down on me with apathy. I thought He just wasn’t that interested or involved in the details of my life but that He was very much keeping score.

I imagined when I sinned or fell short that He was angry and I would even have this imagery in my head of Him turning away from me, punishing me with the silent treatment — washing His hands of me until I did enough to earn His love and favor back.

I believed this because this is how I learned people responded to my shortcomings and mistakes. Imagine the freedom when I learned that none of that was true!

The truth is that He is crazy about you. Let’s look at some key points and verses that reveal just how much the Father loves you.

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How To Survive Life's Storms | What the Bible Has To Say About Storms

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There is a storm blowing in right now as I am writing this. The clouds have gone all dark and gray, and there’s a quietness in the air. Here is a random fact about me. I love storms! 

Thunderstorms just quiet my soul and remind me of the power that our God possesses. Scripture tells us there this crazy lightning & thunderstorm display happening around His throne. I love that. Storms make me think of Heaven. 

Now I know storms can quickly become scary. They can go from your average thunderstorm to something very destructive very quickly. These types of storms remind me of life. Life is full of ups and downs. There are moments where being joyful is so effortless it just pours from us. Then there are times where we find ourselves in a stormy season. Thankfully the Bible has a lot to say about storms.

Now I know storms can quickly become scary. They can go from your average thunderstorm to something very destructive very quickly. These types of storms remind me of life. Life is full of ups and downs. There are moments where being joyful is so effortless it just pours from us. Then there are times where we find ourselves in a stormy season. 

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How God Feels About Your Weird Phase

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Today I wanted to share something close to my heart lately. I want to talk about weird phases. Ever said something like, “I don’t know…I’m just going through a weird phase…?”

I think we all have at some point. 

Our lives are marked by tons of “weird” phases. I feel like the queen of coping mechanisms. Some of my memorable (and shareable) ones include:

  • The summer in high school where I only wore miniskirts every day for months. 
  • The time I became obsessed with mobile gaming. All free moments…and even some that weren’t free were sacrificed to the great mobile games.
  • The season I decided I was never wearing jeans again.
  • The year I allowed my husband's opinions and approval to define me.

I could literally go on all day but I'll spare you.

These seasons of weirdness can look like anything and a lot of times they can come with a bit of shame. So today lets look at how God feels about your weird phase.

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God Is Not Mad At You & Here's Why

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The idea that God is this big angry guy in the sky dishing out judgment and cancer is a common one. Maybe you had a hot head for a parent, or maybe your Sunday school teacher was the hail and brimstone type.

There’s just something about a love that claims to know no bounds and be wholly unconditional that tends to freak us out. We don’t see ourselves as deserving of such a love. We get confused, and we think that God will treat us how we treat us.

The truth is God is not mad at you and He does not treat us how we tend to treat us. He doesn’t treat the way we deserve and here is why. 

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What To Do When God Seems Silent

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Here we are a quarter into the fresh new year and I wanted to offer some encouragement to you my friend from a place that is all too familiar to us all.

In my experience, this is around the time all our hopes and dreams for the year ahead can tend to fade as we realize the only thing that’s changed is the last digit in the date. 

New year. Same issues. 

The good news is that God’s character, faithfulness, love, and position legitimately never change. 

So today I want to talk about seasons where that doesn’t feel true. What do we do when God seems silent or far away?

Here are three tips for navigating through those challenging seasons. 

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