If you have kids, think about when you brought your newborn baby home for the first time. What did you feel? What were you thinking? If you were like me, your whole being was filled with excitement and an overwhelming fear. I remember looking at my wife with what could only be described as sheer panic and saying, “I don’t think I can do this.”

Honestly, I was terrified. I had no clue what I was doing. I thought I was prepared for this adventure of parenthood. I read all the books, I talked to other dads, I was going to be the best dad ever. Yet, no matter how many books I read or how many people I spoke to, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of bringing home my son.  

Then Satan did what Satan does. He began to whisper lies. I told myself, “You don’t know what you are doing.” “You are going to ruin this kid’s life.” “Who are you kidding? You can’t do this.” At first, it was easy to dismiss the thoughts. But the more I said them, the more I heard them, the easier they were to believe. 

That is the thing about lies. If you hear a lie once, it is pretty easy to distinguish it as an untruth. However, the more you listen to it, the more you repeat it, the easier it is to buy into it. And buy into it, I did. Soon, I found myself in a pretty dark place. I began to suffer with depression. I held my son and all the emotions and feelings that I expected to experience never arrived. I even found myself not wanting to be a dad. I had bought into the lie I told myself, “I can’t do this.”

Have you been there? Have you ever told yourself, “I can’t do this?”

Maybe it was unrelated to being a parent, but there is some area in your life where this thought has reared its ugly head.

The interesting thing about this lie, “I can’t do this,” is that it isn’t entirely a lie. Hear me out. Often, in our culture, we think we can do anything. We tell our kids, “You can be anything you want when you grow up.” But the reality is, they can’t.  

When my son, Graham, was five years old, he wanted to grow up and be Spiderman. In all seriousness, he would tell me, “Dad, when I grow up, I am going to move to New York and fight the bad guys.” How do you think I responded to my son? Did I tell him, “That is great! Go be Spiderman.” I would say to him, “Well, son, Spiderman is not real. No one can climb walls and shoot webs out of their wrist.” Not because I wanted to be a jerk to him, but because to tell him he could do it would be lying to him. 

You may think that is harsh, but no one can be anything they want. I wanted to play in the NBA. I quickly realized I was short, slow, and couldn’t jump. There was no way I was playing in the NBA. People had to tell me, “You can’t do it.”

A saying that has been circulated for what seems like forever, and I detest it, is, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Maybe you have never said this, but I guarantee you have heard it somewhere. It is an outright lie. It is a miserable interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10:13, where Paul tells the Corinthian Church:

“…God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” [ESV].

In this context, Paul is speaking about idolatry and sin. He tells the reader that you will not face any temptation where you have no choice but to sin. There is always a solution that does not require disobedience to God.

Paul is not saying that God will never give you more than you can handle. If you look at scripture, there are numerous situations when God allowed people to experience something that they could not handle. 

I think of Job. The man, described as a “righteous man,” lost everything. His children die, his possessions are taken, his servants are killed, he loses his health, and to top it all off, his wife, the one who should have been his encouragement, told him to “curse God and die.” Maybe Job was a better man than me, but it all seemed too much for one man to handle. 

What about Paul? Paul went through it in his life. The Bible tells us that Paul was kidnapped (Acts 21:27), beaten (Acts 21:30-31;23:3), threatened (Acts 22:22;27:42), arrested many times (Acts 21:33; 22:24; 23:35; 28:16), accused in lawsuits (Acts 21:34; 22:30; 24:1-2; 25:2; 28:4), interrogated (Acts 25:24-27), ridiculed (Acts 26:24), ignored (Acts 27:11), shipwrecked (Acts 27:41), and bitten by a snake (Acts 28:3). 

Maybe you can think of a time when you felt like you had been handed something you could handle. I have friends who had to suffer the loss of a child. It is a road I have never had to walk, and I pray it is one I never will. Because, by their admission, it is too great a burden to bear. God allowed them to walk through something they would tell you was more than they could not handle. 

So, why does God allow us to walk through the heavy?

Why does he sometimes give us more than we can handle? Paul provides a perfect answer in 2 Corinthians 1:9. Here, Paul tells the reader that the persecution he experienced in Asia was so bad that he “despised life itself.” Then, in verse 9, he writes:

“Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” [ESV].

Paul, the guy who went through all the horrible situations that we mentioned earlier, said that things were so bad that it felt like a judge gave him a death sentence. But, he concludes by pointing out that all of the horrible things he had gone through were to cause him to rely on God. 

Why does God allow us to experience things that we can’t handle? So that we can rely on Him. No matter what we are facing, no matter how heavy the burden, God is there with us, saying, “Rely on me. My grace will sustain you and bring you through the heavy.”

When I went through my season of depression after becoming a dad, and I told myself, “I can’t do this,” it was only a partial lie. The truth is on my own, I couldn’t do it. Jesus tells us in John 15:5 that we can’t do anything apart from him. It is only by his grace that he allows us to take our next breath. More importantly, apart from him, we can accomplish nothing of spiritual significance. 

In the context of family discipleship, what does God giving us more than we can handle have to do with anything? Everything! When you become a parent, you are given a unique calling to be the primary disciple-makers of your kids, and it is a call that is far too heavy a burden. The weight of this calling causes many to repeat the words I said far too often, “I can’t do this.” And if you have found yourself saying these words, you will find what I did, you are right if you have relied on your strength. Family discipleship cannot be accomplished apart from the grace of God. To succeed in family discipleship, we must rely on Jesus to accomplish what He can. 

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he is writing them about his ministry to the church, and in chapter 1, verse 29, he writes:

“For this, I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” [ESV]. 

Paul desires for the Colossians to be thoroughly discipled, and he works hard so that he “may present everyone, mature in Christ” (v. 28).  Yet, Paul understands that success in disciplining the Colossians is not done in his strength. Paul clarifies that Christ is working through him (his energy). 

There has never been a more equipped person to make disciples than the Apostle Paul. Yet, Paul understood that if he relied on his strength to make disciples, he would fail miserably. Why? Because discipleship is done by the power of God working in and through us. While God works through us, He alone produces any spiritual growth in an individual (1 Cor. 3:6-7).

Understanding this truth helps us see that saying “I can’t do this” is not entirely untrue. As we saw earlier, apart from Christ, we can do nothing, especially anything of spiritual value (John 15:1-11). You and I can work hard and toil earnestly, trying to make disciples, but if we are striving in our strength and not relying on God, we will never see the results.

While in one sense telling yourself, “I can’t do this,” is not entirely untrue, in another sense, it is a lie from Satan, the Father of Lies. Yes, God has given us a difficult calling that, sometimes, may even seem impossible. But that means that we are in good company. As we look through scripture, God called people to do impossible things. Many responded like I did: “I can’t do this.” 

Moses Provides an Example.

Think about Moses. In Exodus, chapter 3, God speaks to him from the burning bush and tells him to go and tell Pharaoh to let the people go. Maybe I am giving myself too much credit, but I would like to think that if God spoke to me from a bush that was on fire and not being burned, I would listen (in reality, I would have done the same thing Moses did.) Moses began to make excuses as to why he couldn’t do it. 

“Who am I to do this. I am insignificant?” (3:11)

“I don’t have all the answers. Who am I supposed to say sent me?” (3:13)

“The people won’t listen to me.” (4:1)

“I don’t speak well.” (4:10)

“Please, ask someone else to do it.” (4:13)

God called Moses to do what seemed impossible: I want you to go to the most powerful man in the world and tell him to let his slaves go free. It shouldn’t be surprising that Moses had excuses. But what I find so fascinating is how God responded to Moses’s excuses. He didn’t try to talk Moses up and give him confidence. 

“You can do it, Moses.”

“You are strong and brave and capable of more than you know.”

“You just got to pick yourself up by your bootstraps (or sandal straps).”

No! What did God say to Moses? It is as if God smirked and said, “Oh, Moses, don’t you think I already know all these things about you?” Then he said, “Moses, I will be with you.” 

God then graciously responds to every one of Moses’ excuses. “Oh, you can’t talk well. Who made the mouth, who makes man mute, deaf, able to see, or blind” (4:11)? “You think the people won’t believe you, throw your staff on the ground” (4:3), and it became a snake. “Put your hand in your cloak and then take it out” (4:6). Moses did, and his hand was infected with leprosy. 

God was telling Moses, “You are right. What I am calling you to do is heavy. You can’t do it in your strength. But Moses, you are just the messenger. I am the one who will be doing the work. You just be faithful to what I am calling you to do, no matter how impossible it may seem. 

There are many other examples in Scripture when God calls men and women to do something that seems impossible. Yet, every time, God is with them. He never calls anyone to do something and then abandons them during their obedience. And he will never leave us in ours. 

When you feel like you can’t do what God calls you to do, when you think, “I can’t disciple my family,” think again. Tell yourself, “The sovereign God of the universe has called me to this, and he will empower me to accomplish it. I can do this through the grace and strength of Jesus.”