"God will not tempt you beyond your control:"
....Apparently not for my Dad and Brother
Now, I believe in God, I do. I identify as a Mennonite/Anabaptist. I think Jesus was a pretty cool dude. I go to church. I have faith. I believe in the Holy Spirit, Heaven, eternity, the afterlife. And I believe God helps us and protects us. But
But I also believe that humans endure some pretty terrible things in life. I think that God gets this. I believe The Creator understands our lot and They understand it, even if/when they don’t always stop us or intervene.
It brings to mind Theodicy, which is defined as a theological construct that attempts to vindicate God in response to the problem of evil that appears inconsistent with the existence of an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God.
Essentially, this notion responds to those people who say that there couldn’t be a God because so much bad shit happens in the world. And if there were really a God and He loved us then He would stop all the bad crap in the world from happening.
I know that we want to believe that shit that everything happens for a reason because then we think we don’t live in chaos and a shit show of a world, where God never gives us more than we can handle.
I would love to live in a rose-colored glass world where that were the case, or a life that I had the luxury of believing that, but I don’t.
That’s not my reality.
My father and my brother blew their brains out.
I don’t believe that happened for a reason.
I believe that—for whatever reasons—what they were going through was obviously too much for them to handle.
Because, obviously, they couldn’t handle it. They ended their existence.
Now, I struggle with this, I do. Because I know that the above is not a trite platitude but it references the Bible.
Which I believe in.
Though it scares me how people misuse it to fit their own agendas. I do believe it has some good stuff in it and instructions in life.
1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV says that:
“No temptation has overtaken you, except what is common to mankind. 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 endure it.”
I have a really hard time admitting that Jeremie and Dad could handle the temptation and could bear it but they didn’t. They chose not to and opted out. Moreover, I don’t believe that that is what that Bible verse indicates.
Because to see it that simplistically, it just feels really shitty and judgmental of someone else’s challenges with addiction, mental illness, and trauma, all that they went through that I can never understand. It goes against everything I have written about before here, what I so adamantly believe that we can never understand another person’s lived, embodied experiences.
Moreover, to say it another way, we need to be really careful with this, because if flippantly dismiss another’s pain that it/life isn’t too much to handle, then we are positioning ourselves as the judge, the one to be able to be able to make that call.
We’re playing God. Which humans like to do all too frequently. Self-appointed judges. Unfortunately, many Christians and believers.
But if we just dismiss what another experiences than we’re also not really loving our neighbor as ourselves: we certainly would care more about our experiences and pain than that, give it more time and attention and would probably feel pretty angry and reduced if someone else responded to our pain in life in such a way.
I believe that verses such as these in the Bible were written to give encouragement and comfort directly and specifically to those who are struggling. They were meant to be used to build each other up in faith but not to excuse an absence of compassion or to dismiss others pain.
We should not act as judges or evaluators that another should be able to take it, whatever ‘it’ is.
To say or operate otherwise is to position us as the judges, rather than fellow fallible human beings.
I know most people don’t think about matters such as this; many are lucky enough not to have to do so.
But if you’ve ever been to the breaking point, wanted to die, considered suicide, lost someone to suicide, or endured some other unspeakable tragedy where you didn’t think you would make it through, or really weren’t sure, then you may think very differently.
I considered all of this as I sat in church last Sunday and listened to this small town Kentucky pastor preach on this, not being tempted beyond what we could handle. And, of course, I thought about my brother and father.
I thought about how uncomfortable it makes me when we use these verses to pretty much say, “suck it up,” “God gets it,” “Jesus suffered more,” and that we should be able to take it, because He won’t allow us to be tempted beyond what we can handle.
Because sometimes it is just too much for us.
And I think that God understands that more than anyone.
Even when we humans fail to do so.
