By 
“We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to bear, so we despaired of life itself …” These are very familiar words. In fact, they are the words of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1: 8. Paul goes on to say that he felt as if they had received a sentence of death (verse 9).
Then we put it together with Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 10:13 that says that “God will not allow you to be tested beyond your strength, that He will provide an outlet for you to endure.”
The fact is, they are both right. Both must be kept in tension with each other.
Life will not ultimately break us, but we will be broken in the process.
Many people will read those words and will not understand them. It will seem crazy. But those who have experienced this paradoxical true evangelical life will attest to the enigmatic truth that this tension defends.
In fact, I would suggest that the authentic Christian experience is about learning to be broken.
In another part of Paul he says that “we are in every way afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not helpless; beaten, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4: 8-9)
Suffering was so familiar to Paul that it’s hard to imagine him repeating the kind of cliché that says, “God won’t give you more than you can bear.” The fact is that his own experience and his own words betray such a statement. When we hear “God will not give you more than you can handle,” there is more to our comfortable culture in those words than the reality that both Paul and we face existentially.
The deepest desire of our culture is that we have control over our own lives, but we must remember that our culture is lost in the fight for what it cannot control.
Why do we succumb to this weakness that must be strong?
The reality of life for the fortunate is that life will take us beyond our ability to bear. I say the lucky ones, because we will not know the recklessness and zeal of God’s faithfulness until we face that situation in which we are broken beyond continuing.
Only in this place where we have nothing left do we realize that we do not need anything to continue.
Because in this we carry within us the death of Christ, which is the most amazing paradox of life in abundance.
When there is no strength left, there is no barrier to surrender. But first there should be no force left.
When we are forced to rest, we rest very well. Perhaps it is a hopelessness that clings to us and we feel besieged. Maybe it’s day after day, week after week, month after month, and the only respite we get are fleeting experiences of peace interspersed with the helplessness of it all.
Fortunate is the person who has experienced death himself – the imperative of the Gospel. We only die to ourselves when we are made to die to ourselves. No one offers to die to himself because he thinks it is a good idea. It is always an admirable idea, but we cannot do such a thing until we are forced to.
Pride of self-sufficiency cannot kill oneself. However, it is in a situation where God gives you more than you can handle that you finally learn to put yourself off and put on Christ.
God gives us more than we can handle in the moments of our lives. He does this often enough for us to learn something. For me, it took several months, up to a dozen and more, before I finally learned what was most necessary from the most valuable internship anyone can sign up for.
God uses the circumstances in our lives that break us to show us that, in Him, we will never be broken.
We can feel broken beyond repair all too often, yet that little hope keeps us tantalizingly in the game.
We never enjoy being pushed past our limit, but when we look back, we enjoy the fact that we survived … and grew!
And we marvel at the faithfulness of God that leads us to the brink and into the abyss.