I'm posting a lot

For one day. Maybe that's a sign of further emo-ness! Boooo being emo is never in style. That's ok. It may be because I'm thinking a lot too - which is both a good and bad thing.

I think God gave me a realization today - I've always said to myself and to others that God will never give us a situation that we can't handle, and I took that from 1 Corinthians 10:

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."(v12-13)

In context, Paul was writing to the Corinthian church about the sins that the Israelites had made in the past, as a reminder to not repeat the same things. He tells them here that God will never give us a temptation that we cannot bear... and that He is faithful and will always provide a way out. I applied that to other circumstances too, thinking that God would never give us a situation that we couldn't handle.

I may or may not be right about what I'm thinking now - but I now disagree. Just because Paul tells us that God will not give us temptation that we can't handle doesn't mean that He'll likewise not give us any other circumstance that we can't handle. And when I say "we can't handle", I do mean something that we ourselves cannot handle - I think that's an important distinction that I never clearly made before... I held before that we can only do anything we do through God - now I hold that we can only do anything because God does it through us. A slight change on words, but I think an entirely different meaning...

And also, taking from Enoch's sermons the last few weeks, we face adversity so that we will turn to God and give up our idols. On top of that, God makes our hard situations harder and even impossible so that we truly depend on Him. Gideon's 300 men versus men numbered as the sands of the shore = impossible situation. That was something that he obviously could never have been able to handle. Never! But God was the one working, so of course, numbers and strength and anything else we could place our bets on don't matter at all.

So... that brought me to think today - God does give us situations that we cannot handle. But it's not so He can stand there and watch us fail miserably and laugh - it's so we really learn to turn fully to Him, 100%. Because even though they are situations that we cannot handle, we're not the ones meant to handle them in the first place.

Well, I hope that I'll remember this when those impossible situations do come along... I have confidence in God though - more and more so as these times have moved on... YAY GOD!

On another note, blogger lets you decide what time to post it! So I'm arbitrarily setting this to be posted at 3:21AM :) I like those numbers. If only I could control the seconds too... then I'd say 3:21:07 - my 3 favorite numbers :D I'm such a nerd.