Objection: God Gives Us More Than We Can Handle to Make Us, Like Paul, Rely on Him, Not on Ourselves (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)

This exhibit from the Museum of Misapplied Scripture supposes that God gives us diseases that are more than we can handle so that we have to rely on Him, supposing that the following passage proves that He does such things:

2 Corinthians 1:8-10:
For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:
But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;

So Paul did indeed get “in over his head” in the natural even though he was in God’s will.  This, however, referred to persecutions and apparent death threats, NOT to illness.  If we look at Paul’s own list of sufferings, which would surely include what happened to him in Asia, sickness is notably absent!  (See the response to the Paul’s Thorn objection for more specifics about this.)  So there is NO indication from this passage that God ever dished out SICKNESS to overwhelm someone to make that person rely on Him.

The fact is, in the ministry as well as Spirit-led business, you will often be led to things that are beyond your natural ability to handle and that will be God’s will.  You will have to learn to trust Him.  In my programming business (my version of tent-making), I had cases where potential clients had “impossible” programming requests that no one could solve.  I didn’t know how to solve them either, but the Lord told me to tell them that I would do it and guarantee that if I didn’t get their project done, they would owe me nothing.  So I signed up to do such projects without knowing how to do them!  Then in the car on the way home I had to ask God how to pull off these “impossible” requests.  And He showed me!  I built a successful business doing that.  Also, I was “over my head” because I’ve never had much of an idea how to market myself.  But for several decades, I never advertised that business, and the phone kept ringing with work when I wanted it.  But traveling in the ministry, especially out-of-country mission trips, posed a special problem.  I couldn’t do the assignments when on mission trips.  But when I was supposed to be preaching overseas, there was no work.  No one had anything that went undone because I was gone.  But as soon as I got back, the work would start up again until the next time I hopped on a plane and left the country.  You just can’t do this stuff in the natural, but I DID do it because of God’s supernatural leading and provision.  I started the business with NO WORK lined up at God’s instruction, but I went and gave 2 weeks’ notice at my job in obedience to Him.  THAT AFTERNOON I got a call asking for programming work, and I went from there and made a lot of money.  If it weren’t for God, I would never have even started the business.  I had to trust Him the whole way.  That can happen when you live by faith!

It’s often said – and true, I believe – that if the vision “God gives you” is something that you could accomplish without His help, the vision really isn’t from God in the first place.

But that is entirely different from turning God into a physical torturer who deliberately inflicts intolerable pain to get you to trust Him!  If a human being made it his custom to torture people up to their physical endurance limits, he would be tried and convicted for war crimes or crimes against humanity.  How dare we assign a character trait to God that makes Him worse than the most despicable kind of human being!

Besides, many people who get to the point of “intolerable” sickness end up in hospice care doped up with morphine and die shortly thereafter.  Where was the great spiritual fruit?  How could God be working in you to get you to trust Him more when you’re gone from the planet and no longer even need to walk by faith instead of by sight?  That is completely senseless, and even a rank sinner should be able to see through such religious nonsense!