Some years back, a doctor named Richard Swenson wrote the book Margin. His basic premise was that we need margin in our lives to be emotionally, physically, and spiritually healthy. Swenson argued the basic formula is simple: power minus load equals margin. Your power includes physical strength, financial resources, and your support system. Your load includes home and work responsibilities, financial obligations, and stress. When your load exceeds your power, you don’t have margin, and if you live without margin, over time, you will experience serious consequences.
We all experience times or seasons in our lives when the load far exceeds our power — days when the weight is simply crushing, pushing us beyond our limits. How should we respond when life is simply too heavy to carry?
Second Corinthians is the Apostle Paul’s most personal letter. As readers progress through the book, they catch a glimpse of Paul’s personal and ministry struggles in a way not seen in some of his other shorter epistles. In chapter one, Paul let us in on what he and his companions experienced in Asia — difficulty both inwardly and outwardly.
The word translated tribulation or affliction in this passage (verse 4) communicates the idea of being pressed or squeezed. Perhaps you have heard the phrase “God will never place more on you than you can bear.” In his first epistle, Paul told the Corinthians (concerning temptation), “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
While it is true I will never face a temptation beyond my ability to resist (with God’s help), I will also experience moments in my life when I am so pressed, squeezed, and burdened by life that endurance is beyond my ability; life is more than I can bear. That is what Paul said here at the beginning of his second letter to Corinth. However, he also makes it clear when life is too heavy,
God will work the difficulty to our good by teaching us three important lessons.
1. You learn who God is (verses 3-4). When life is too heavy, God comes into clear focus. In verse 3, Paul described Him as the Father of mercies. Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us God’s mercies are new every morning. Each day He provides new and fresh mercies, sufficient for the day and season of your life.
When my mother was first diagnosed with cancer in December 2014, she consulted with doctors in Mississippi regarding treatment and prognosis but then sought additional opinions. In time, this led her to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, near my home, and she began treatments there. She came to visit every two weeks, and looking back now, I see God’s great mercy to me in these circumstances. If she had not come to Nashville for treatment, I would have been unable to see her as often during the final years of her life. God is merciful.
He is also the God of all comfort. His comfort varies. It may come through the touch and words of a loved one, a song at church or on the radio, an unexpected blessing at just the right moment, or direct ministry of the Holy Spirit to the soul. Regardless of how comfort comes to us, Paul identified God as the source. God the Holy Spirit is the great Comforter, the One who comes alongside us, who is always with us.
He is the God who raises the dead. He raised Jesus from the dead, giving testimony as to who Jesus was and what He accomplished in His work. As a pastor, I have been there when people have died; I have stood beside many caskets with grieving loved ones. In those moments, words are powerless. But not for the Lord, who can raise the dead, who will raise those in Christ at the end of time to receive glorified bodies and be reunited with those
they love.
When life is too heavy, pay attention to the right voice — the voice of God who lifts you up, carries you, and brings light into your darkness.
2. You learn who you are (verses 5-6). I am a child of God. Nothing else really matters in terms of titles or accolades or accomplishments or status. And as a child of God, when life is too heavy, it teaches me several things:
I have limits. In our youth, perhaps, we feel as if our strength is endless, but time and life have a way of reinforcing our limitations. And this is where Paul was, right? He had been pushed and pressed beyond his limit.
I am dependent. This is where the slogan “God will never put more on you than you can bear” fails. Again, according to 1 Corinthians 10:13, this is true concerning temptation. But in life itself, according to Paul, sometimes God does place more on you than you can bear. Paul described his situation as great pressure, far beyond his ability to endure, despairing of life itself, and facing the sentence of death. We might say he was “at the end of his rope” or had “hit rock bottom.” We must reach the end of ourselves to discover more of God. We must be weaned off all self-reliance.
Paul said the events in his life happened for a reason, a bigger and better purpose: so, he would not rely on self but on God who raises the dead.
Are you tempted to rely on yourself? Intellect, problem solving, physical strength, willpower, sheer determination? Perhaps your gifts and abilities? At some point, we will learn we aren’t enough. We need absolute reliance upon God.
I have a purpose. Suffering teaches us to be a channel of God’s grace. After we are comforted in trouble, God, in turn, wants us to comfort others.
3. You learn who you can count on (verses 7-11). Paul didn’t want the church at Corinth to be unaware of the suffering he and his companions experienced in Asia.
We do well to follow this example, not to hide struggles, attempting to carry our burdens alone. If he lived in our social media-driven culture, Paul might have been tempted to post “only good pictures” from Asia, showing the team having a great time and living their best lives. But we all know social media doesn’t present the total picture, especially of what is going on inside. Instead,
Paul, with full transparency, admitted his struggles and asked for prayer. I can’t help but think of Paul’s own words in Galatians 6:2: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
To quote the old country song:
Run your car off the side of the road
Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere
Get yourself in a bind, lose the shirt off your back
Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare…
You’ll find out who your friends are.
This is (or should be) true in the church. When life is too hard and too heavy for us, we find friends in our Christian family who help shoulder the load and pray faithfully for us. Paul said in verse 11: “Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.”
God will deliver, and yet Paul still urged the Corinthians to pray. When more people pray, when God delivers, then more people can give thanks. I know you can’t always share the difficulties of your life in detail with the whole church, but whenever you can share a need with others — even a handful of other believers — and they band together to pray, you learn more about the family of God.
Is life too heavy for you right now? I hope not. But with this many readers, I am sure someone somewhere is carrying a load beyond what he or she can bear. As these difficult days make your limitations clear, may they also teach you or remind you who God is, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. May your hard days lead you to discover the people in your life upon whom you can rely, no matter your circumstances.
