Reliance on God

Perhaps you have heard the popular saying, “God never gives us more than we can handle.” When I was a family caregiver, however, I discovered that I often felt overwhelmed and felt that God had given me much more than I could handle. I felt this more strongly with each new decline in my husband’s disease, and I especially felt this way the last months of my husband’s life when I could no longer physically take care of him on my own.

The truth is God never promised to NOT give us more trials and difficulties than we can handle on our OWN. In fact God often gives us much more struggles than we can handle. God does this, so that our eyes will be open to how desperate we are for Him and for His help and provision.

Rather than striving to be more self-reliant we need to seek to become more God-reliant. As a caregiver I learned that I just did not have the resources in myself to handle the challenges and heartaches of caregiving on my own, so I absolutely had no choice but to rely on the Lord.

As a caregiver I also learned that I had to have help from others. I learned that God sometimes used others to help me. They became His instruments in helping me and in His kingdom. I needed to begin to root out my desire to be in control. The truth was I never was in control of anything. God was in control, and I needed to learn to rely and trust in Him.

Dear Christian Caregiver, what change would it make in your outlook towards your caregiving challenges and struggles, if you saw them as valued lessons in learning dependence on God? When you are at the absolute end of you own spiritual, physical, and emotional resources you can then begin to more fully depend on God’s resources. (Check out II Corinthians 1:8-9!) Total reliance on God is a good place to be!