Why God Will ALWAYS Give Us More Than We Can Handle -- According to a 16 Year Old

I love my current assignment in church. I get to work with the young women, and they are a constant source of entertainment, information, and inspiration. Okay, and quite often stress, let's be honest. But I'm focusing on the awesomeness--because there's really a lot of that. Especially what happened on Sunday.


So. On Sunday we were having a lesson on patience during our class. And this new girl, who is a super attractive 16 year old who maybe if you saw her you'd think she didn't have a care in the world. (Which is what we do as humans. Especially female humans. We think attractive people have no problems.)


But she said, "I've had hard things in my life. But the thing I hate is when someone says, 'God will never give you more than you can handle. Because that is just untrue. Completely wrong.'"


And in my head I'm thinking of the scripture in Timothy that says we will never be tempted beyond what we can bear and thinking that in my mind maybe I often confuse those two concepts. Tempted beyond what we can handle isn't the same as tried beyond what we can handle.


So, Miss Gorgeous went on. "Of course God gives us more than we can handle. If we never got more than we could handle, we'd never grow. We'd just get stuff we could handle and move on. No biggie. The thing to remember is that He will never give us more than HE can handle. And then we depend on Him to carry us through it, and then, with His help, we can handle it."


I love that.
So true.


From the mouths of hot babes.

A Commandment I COMPLETELY Missed the Memo On

Yesterday the most fabulous thing happened.

For the past six or eight months, I’ve had a specific worry that has been weighing on my mind and heart. It was a situation that could very much affect my family, and that could potentially cause serious problems.

I’ve spent hours and hours on my knees trying to figure out solutions, begging for insight, making plans to combat this problem.

Finally, about two months ago, I just gave it to God. I’d done everything I could, physically, spiritually, emotionally to make this right. At that point, I just put it in the Lord’s hands, asking him to let my soul rest, to let the right thing work out. If the trial had to be, it had to be, and I would just trust Him to carry us through. It had to be enough. And I placed my faith in Him, that he would bless and protect us.

Along the way, there were little blips of help—things that reminded me He was aware of me, that He cared, and that He was still watching, even though there was no real solution as of yet. Those gave me courage and bolstered my faith.

Yesterday, the situation finally resolved. At last! And the news was good! And the threat has passed, and God is just so good to me. I feel everything lighter as the storm clouds pass away over the horizon. Last night, as I climbed into bed, I told my husband I was afraid I was a little like Memory Foam. That after a long time of pressure, I might not spring back immediately. There might be a bit of time to puff back out to my real shape, but that I could already feel the expansion as the pressure had lifted. Hallelujah.

This morning, as I studied the scriptures, I was pondering on the word “Thanks.” Of course! I looked it up in the topical guide and began going through the scriptures one by one, until one hit me—hard. And it wasn’t the thanks portion of it.

2 Nephi 9:52

Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give thanks unto his holy name by night. Let your hearts rejoice.

The remember and the prayer and the thanks parts, I expected. However, it was the verb that starts the final phrase that arrested me.

 

Let your hearts rejoice.

 

Now, I’ve seen that phrase a lot of times in the scriptures. We all have, I know. It’s just there, all the time. For me it almost blends into the background. But…

Today I realized it starts with “let.” And that it can have a couple of meanings.
The first meaning that hit me was taking the word “let” in the meaning “allow.” I need to allow my heart to rejoice.

How many times do good things come to me, and I say, “Wow! That’s great. Now I can really focus on this other problem or weakness.” Or how many times do I think, “Whew. That’s nice. And now if I just didn’t have this other thing, I’d be almost there.”

Ugh! That’s starting to rejoice… and then instantly pulling back. It’s stopping myself from feeling the full joy of the moment, of the blessing.

The second thing I noticed about “let” was that it makes the whole sentence in command form. Let your hearts rejoice. It’s a command. It’s important enough for us to rejoice that the Lord’s words are not a suggestion, “Maybe you should rejoice.” Or “Think about rejoicing, but then move on pretty quick to trying to improve yourself in other ways.” Nope. It’s a command to take the time to rejoice. To fully feel the joy of the blessing He has afforded us.

And so, with that little slap in the face, er, reminder, I am just going to say that today, I am SO HAPPY! I will take the time to fully rejoice, to fully feel the gratitude and goodness of my God, of His love, of His blessing and care and mercy.

And then I am going to think about the other ways, not just this specific thing He’s given me, but the other things He blesses me with so much that they too kind of fade into the background, and LET myself feel joy for them too.

Because “Men are that they might have joy.”

I am going to LET myself have joy today.

The Need to Ponder--And What We Might Be Missing Without It

I was thinking about how connected everyone seems to the Internet these days. It's almost like an IV of information that no one can get off. I know I'm on here quite a few hours a day doing stuff like social networking and research for my writing. When you think about it, it's a little disturbing how much like creepy, mind-numbed robots we must all look from the outside.


There is a danger in being too connected all the time, though. Several dangers, I'm sure, like disconnection from *real* social interaction, that face-to-face time with friends and loved ones; or lack of physical exercise; or just plain idleness and waste of time.


This morning I was thinking about how even during church meetings I see people ignoring the message or the lesson and messing around on their phones. This includes adults and kids. It's almost weird. Of course, when *I* need to look something up, it's "important" that I know it right then... Ugh. I'm such a hypocrite!


Anyway, the danger that came to my mind this morning of always being hooked up to a constant feeding tube of information is our lack of time to ponder. Focused thinking, that's pondering, right? Sometimes I do my best pondering with a pen in one hand and a little notebook in the other, and sometimes it's while I'm driving alone with the radio off. Sometimes I ponder best while I'm on a walk at sunrise watching the full moon set. When do you ponder?


But my pondering time gets cut short throughout the day. Back in times gone by, people did a lot more physical labor than we do now, in general. Work in the fields, work hunting animals, work in the garden, work at the river washing laundry on a rock. It was solitary a lot of times, and there were no radios or audiobooks or music downloads to keep the mind occupied.


There was time to ponder. Plenty of it.


But do we have that? What's preventing us from it? In my case, it's being online too much. Guilty as charged!


But so what? Do we need it? Really?


I submit that we might be missing some important stuff by cutting out that important part of our lives.


A story from the Book of Mormon comes to mind. It's right at the beginning of the first book, First Nephi. Nephi's dad, Lehi, has had this vision about a tree, and Nephi wants to know what it means. All the family does (and their dad apparently doesn't provide any kind of explanation, so they're on their own.) Here's what Nephi says in 1 Nephi 11:1.


1 For it came to pass after I had desired to know the things that my father had seen, and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me, as I sat pondering in mine heart I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord, yea, into an exceedingly high mountain, which I never had before seen, and upon which I never had before set my foot.


There are three things in this that Nephi says he does, and then, what unfolds to him is this miraculous vision (which he shares over several chapters following) and great understanding of his own life, of his family's future, of his posterity--and beyond. It's epic in scope, and he even sees our day. It's amazing.


What three things?
1) He desires to know and understand. He wants it.
2) He believes the Lord is able to make it known unto him.
3) He sits pondering it in his heart (which I assume includes some prayerful asking, but maybe not. It might have just been a think-a-thon.)


The result of his pondering is astounding. He not only sees the things his father saw, he gets to ask the meaning of them. And then he writes them down and tells us about it. It's so amazing. I love it.
And it's all because he did those three things.


Later on, after he's detailed it all, he runs into his brothers, and they're being surly. He asks them what their problem is, and they're arguing about what their father said he saw. Nephi asks a pointed question: Well, guys, have you asked the Lord about it? They answer, Nope. The Lord wouldn't tell us anyway.


The brothers are missing parts 2 and 3 in the formula. They didn't believe God would answer, nor did they bother to ask. Was Nephi more special and favorite and chosen than his brothers? Yes, but only because HE chose to put himself in that position. The Lord would have answered the brothers just as he did Nephi, if they'd believed and asked and pondered. I'm sure of it.


And so, if we have questions, and if we follow Nephi's formula, I'm convinced the answers are there for us. We might not get to see the whole future of our people laid out for us, but we will be able to figure out answers for our own families and children. We will be able to understand how to solve the daily problems, no matter how small or large, that perplex us. But not if we don't take time to ponder. If we are so constantly mind-occupied by things that distract us and occupy us.


Of course, being busy defines daily life. It might be impossible to carve out a pondering time during the day. But maybe I need to get up earlier or simply choose a time to shut down everything noisy or on a screen and simply ponder. Because I have things that perplex me, that I worry about, that I wish I knew how to fix. I trust that God knows how to fix them, though. And this three step method is a way to tap into that great wellspring of His knowledge--that He is willing to give me if I simply desire, believe, and ponder.