Sometimes God gives us 'more' than we can bear

This morning we looked at the psalmist's encouragement to "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). The essence of the sermon was we are to love God sufficiently to be content with how the sovereign, gracious God is overseeing the big and small details of our lives. We are not to simply grin and bear the pain - either stoically or by denying the reality of the pain and heartache that disappointments and difficulties bring into our lives. Instead, we are to trust in the goodness, wisdom, strength and mercy of our loving God, even when we don't fully appreciate all that is going on.  It was that God might delight and rejoice in us (Zeph 3:17) that Jesus endured the pain of the cross (Heb. 12:2-3). It was, and is, a hard message to preach - perhaps even harder to listen to.

In dealing with such emotive issues there is a fine balance (which sometimes is not adequately achieved) between encouraging believers to have a robust faith in a good God, and being pastorally sensitive to the acute pain and struggles that some believing brothers and sisters are experiencing.  And therefore I want to direct you to the honest and blunt thoughts of one pastor, writing at a time of great personal angst, and of the impact that that had upon his relationship with God.

The past three weeks have been the most difficult I have ever gone through.  These three weeks have been filled with illness, the terrible-three’s (the terrible-two’s are an out-and-out lie), a friend suffering the consequence of sin, a ministry I am a part of reeling in confusion and pain, having to cancel a trip to celebrate my parents 60th birthdays, and our family experiencing the emotional roller-coaster of finding out we were pregnant only to be told the pregnancy was ectopic and could be life-threatening to my wife if it was not ended.
Needless to say, I have had enough.

I know I am not alone.  As trying as the last three weeks have been for me, I know some people who have dealt with far more for far longer.  But that doesn’t change the fact that this has been painful for me and my wife.  In the face of all this, I can honestly say I feel no pressure to be the “pastor” and have the answer for this.  Honestly, even as a pastor, I have no answer for this.  My questions before God about the reality of what my family has experienced over the last three weeks are the exact same questions anyone would ask.

• Why?
• Why not step in?
• Why not act?
• Why wouldn’t you make it right?
• Why couldn’t you part the clouds and provide a moment for us to catch our breath?
• Why everything at once?
• Why?

Not only am I okay asking those questions, but I think there is something holy and sacred in being courageous enough to ask them.  Don’t be fooled, those questions are only to be asked by the courageous.  It is easy to spout trite Christian platitudes designed to make people feel better with bumper-sticker theology.  But insipid axioms do little in the face of the actual brokenness of the world.  It is more courageous to ask the hard questions of God and wait for him to answer than it is to find hope on the side of coffee mug.  Asking those questions requires courage because, in the end, it is very likely they will not be answered.

Ultimately, it isn’t about the questions.  Behind the questions is a deep current of emotion threatening to overtake us.  But too often, when the fracture in the universe threatens to swallow us up in pain we fail to get fully present to our emotions.  In those moments I think we do one of two things.  Either we ask the questions but never investigate what emotion is driving those questions, or we resort to some banal Christian slogan to try and make us feel better.

This experience forced me to look at one such statement that gets spouted often when people go through a lot:  God won’t give you more than you can handle.  If I may be so bold, let’s just call that what it is...

You can read the rest - and hard-hitting, but ultimately helpful it is - here.