A lesson from Meme’s house

The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. 

The framed saying sat on a dresser in my great-grandmother’s, my meme’s, house. I read it so many times growing up, after church on Sunday or spending time with her during the week. Every time I would see it, I’d read it over and over to myself. Without realizing it, I was committing this phrase to memory. 

There’s another popular phrase that goes, “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.” At some point I’ve come to realize, and would now like to go on the record as saying, YES HE WILL. He 100% will. Know why? 

Hard things happen, things we don’t think we’ll be able to handle. But that’s the point! He can. And He wants to. 

He wants us to turn around and say, “You know what? I can’t do this. Here you go.” Surrendering, accepting our human-ness, opens the door and invites God in with His grace, power, and strength that we don’t have ourselves. 

The Bible doesn’t say “I can do everything by myself through my own strength.” Paul wrote that God’s grace is made perfect in our weakness — God knew we wouldn’t be able to do things on our own, but that’s where His grace comes in. The apostle said he’d rather boast in his weaknesses (he was way smarter than I am, that’s for sure) because it meant Christ’s power was upon him. And wow, wouldn’t you rather the King of the Universe’s power rather than your own? 

While writing this, I came across a verse in 1 Corinthians (1:25) that I’d never read before. It says, “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 

I’m the first to admit I like to be in control. But every time I’ve told God, “I don’t know how to handle this,” He’s said, “I know. You can’t. But I can. So let me have it.” And that act of surrender is what He wants. For us to come to Him, admit and accept our weaknesses, humble ourselves, cast everything we care about (that’s a lot) on Him. Know why? Because He loves us. And He can handle it. His grace will keep us, hold us, make us strong. 

So yes, God may lead us to some hard things - the Bible says we’ll have trials. But that doesn’t mean God just drops us off and says, “Alright, see ya later when everything is easy again!” No, when we’re having a hard time, God and His grace are there too. Right there with us, ready to keep us and see us through. All we have to do is ask.