Someone may have told you that God will never give you more than you can handle, or you may have said it yourself.

Let me be frank. I do not believe that statement because it does not match with scripture or experience.

In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark you will find the account of Jesus and his disciples facing a crowd of 5,000 men, and possibly 15,000 including women and children. This crowd showed up to hear Jesus’ teachings.

As the time grew late, the disciples came to Jesus to inform him of the late hour and the fact that their location was in the middle of nowhere. They requested that Jesus send the crowd into the surrounding villages so they could buy food.

Jesus countered the disciples with a challenge, “You give them something to eat.”

Their subsequent response to Jesus exposed them – they had been pushed beyond their limits. The task Jesus gave them was absolutely more than they could handle.

In the first chapter of 2 Corinthians the Apostle Paul unashamedly recounts how he and others in his circle had been pushed beyond their limits.

“For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself,” Paul said.

God gave them more than they could handle. These men were driven to the end of themselves, just as the disciples were. They were not self-sufficient. They needed someone outside of themselves. They were not supermen, or even super Christians.

Why did God do this to them? Why does he allow more in our lives than we can handle?

Paul follows the earlier verse with this explanation: “Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

In the Mark account, once the disciples are brought to the end of themselves, Jesus takes a tiny amount of fish and bread and feeds the more than 15,000 men, women and children. God is about bringing us to the end of ourselves in order to drive us to him.

Consider your own experience. Have you ever been pushed beyond your own resources in your marriage? Have you ever been brought to the end of your parental wisdom with your 15 year old? Have you ever had to make a career or life decision when faced with multiple options? Have you ever been overwhelmed with guilt?

God is routinely in the business of giving us more than we can handle so that we will turn to him, the one who raises the dead.