There's a song on Christian radio right now that I utterly deplore. I'm not going to name it or give the lyrics because I don't want to trash something that might have blessed someone else. If it did, wonderful.

The gist of this song is that if you are a "good person" and bad things keep happening to you, you should be happy because God has promised not to give you more than you can take. 

Problem 1) No human being is a good person. Once we are made alive in Christ, the Holy Spirit begins the process of changing us to be more like Jesus and gives us Christ's righteousness, but that doesn't make us inherently good in ourselves or deserving of good things instead of bad things. I'm incredibly offended by the idea that as a Christian, I should get on some kind of high horse and feel insulted when things don't go my way because I'm so wonderful. That just isn't how things work, and if we're going by what I "deserve," then I shouldn't even be alive right now and looking forward to a glorious future in heaven. The Christian life is all about how we don't get the punishment we deserve, not that we deserve awesome things because we're good.

Problem 2) The idea that God doesn't give us more than we can take is based on 1 Corinthians 10:13: 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.

This verse is talking about temptation to sin. I would contend that it's not talking about the unbearable sadness of losing loved ones. It's not addressing the experience of physical pain so intense you think you're losing your mind. It's not about rejection so painful you can hardly breathe. We may be tempted during these experiences, and yet, they are not temptations in themselves. They're just hard, horrible things that happen to us when we live in a fallen world. (On top of this, the song has an incredibly humanistic tone, as if we're the ones with the strength.)

As someone who has now gone through nine years of physical suffering as a result of an incurable disease, I cannot express to you how incredibly offended I am by a peppy song chorus implying that we should just dance around on our merry way because nothing is ever going to happen to us that we can't handle. 

What about reality? What about those times that come to all of us when something hits us right in the solar plexus so hard that we fall down and feel like we're never going to be able to get up again? If you're alive, you know what I'm talking about. 

I'm going to end this with song lyrics that I'm proud to include, for the song "The Hurt and the Healer" by MercyMe, because here's what I believe: 

I believe God allows things to happen to us that we can't handle all the time. He lets us fall, slip, be knocked into situations that Satan and our fallen world provide, not because He's a sadist who wants us to fail. No, He lets us come up against huge mountains we can't climb because He knows Who can handle them. Every time we dangle over a precipice of impossibility, we have a chance to let ourselves fall--into the arms of the Healer, Jesus Christ. I don't need some saccharine promise about having enough strength in myself to handle whatever is thrown at me. When I have no more strength left, what I need is to be reminded to look to Jesus, my Savior who can not only handle anything, but He can make it glorious.

The Hurt and The Healer

Why?
The question that is never far away
The healing doesn’t come from the explained
Jesus please don’t let this go in vain
You’re all I have
All that remains

So here I am
What’s left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I’m alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I’ve fallen into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide