Over at BeliefNet, Megan Bailey has a great list of the things cheery Christians who were born with optimistic dispositions say to the depressed.
Her list:
- “Confess your sins to God.”
- “Others have been through it worse.”
- “You will get over it.”
- “You need this specific medication, therapy or treatment to be happy.”
- “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
- “You should work on strengthening your faith.”
I just wanted to mention something about the fifth (which is based on a verse from 1 Corinthians 10): “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
We’ve heard that countless times from well-intentioned ministers who are, rightly, urging people to keep going.
But that’s because we’re interpreting that verse completely wrong.
The verse is this (NKJV): “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Most translations use “temptation” there, but others also use “trial.” The meaning seems to change, doesn’t it?
Most Christians would argue that, yes, indeed, God has given us every means (The Spirit) to overcome any temptation, but we all know that is a completely different matter than God giving us every means to overcome a trial.
A trial, for example, might be cancer. The temptation would be to abandon God during your bout with cancer. God doesn’t promise the means for deliverance from the trial (the cancer), but he does promise the means for staying true to him during the trial (his Spirit).
Your body probably won’t be able to handle the trial, but your devotion to God can.
That’s what this verse is about.
So why is it sometimes translated “trial”? Hero translator James Strong says that the Greek word can mean both “trial” or “temptation,” and context is key.
All of I Corinthians 10 is about temptation, so the reasonable assumption is that verse 13 is also about temptation.
That’s why the ESV, NLT, ASV, and NKJV have all translated that word “temptation.”
Unfortunately, many Christians misread the verse and use it to give false hope that God will never send a trial that sends us over the edge.
Now… before I finish: one comment on #2: “Others have been through worse.”
This is also ubiquitous, but it’s ridiculous to say on a couple counts.
First, many of us respond: “Yes, they have been through worse and that makes the world all the more sad.”
It’s not like we suddenly think, “Oh, people are doing even worse than I am. Now I feel better!”
Second, as T.S. Eliot wrote of suffering in The Cocktail Party (quoted in Glorious Ruin): “All cases are unique, and very similar to others,” while Charles Spurgeon said, “We should feel more for the prisoner if we knew about the prison.”
We should never compare suffering. If you’re feeling awful, you’re feeling completely awful. In fact, depressed people often can’t find a reason, but that doesn’t mean the suffering is any less intense.
Again, going to our buddy Spurgeon: “The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again each hour.”
