As Christians, we always hear, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” But, if you read the Scriptures and study what God says to His people, you’d find that He never actually says this. In fact, I think the opposite. I think God gives us far more than we can handle. But He also gives us what we need to overcome, if we allow Him to strengthen us.

Look at the life of Job. God allows Satan to oppress Job, he faces persecution and trials of various kinds, and God is silent. God allows Job to be stripped of everything he loves and knows, God allows Satan to push Job to the breaking point, God allows pain, God allows hurt, God allows sin.

How can an infinitely good God allow these terrible things to happen in our lives?

We can’t really understand it all. God allows us to have free will, to choose our own paths. We, and others, choose for sin to happen. Our decisions and other people’s decisions cause there to be pain in our world, because we so choose. Then, we scream and yell at God because we’re angry that He allowed sin into the world, when we were the ones who brought it on. We are angry at God for the fruits of our choices.

“God is not concerned about our plans; He does not say—Do you want to go through this bereavement; this upset? He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women; or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon our own way. The things that happen either make us fiends, or they make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship we are in to God” (Oswald Chambers)

Sin, pain, and oppression are inevitable, because we live in a broken and fallen world. It is our choice what we do with the cards we are dealt. It is our choice to allow the sin to affect us negatively or positively.

Sin changes people, it is our decision to make it change us for the better. We can choose to be refined by our unfortunate circumstances and be better because of it.

If we lean into God’s ultimately good provisions, we’ll learn that He holds a hard life ahead of us, but He does this so we could depend more greatly and fully on Him. If Job triumphed over his trials because he trusted in God, we definitely can. Jesus triumphed over His trials, therefore He can give us what we need to triumph over our trials, He has proven His reliability through the testimony of Job. God’s plan for us is not to be comfortable and happy, but to depend on Him, have joy through our pain, and glorify His name forever.

In persevering amidst the struggles, we are growing closer to oneness with God. Chambers says: “Some of us are far off it, and yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him, because Jesus has prayed that we may be.” Though we feel distant from God’s blessings, we can be blessed and become more beautiful through our difficult circumstances if we so choose.

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13)