Hershael York is the senior pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky. He once preached on 2 Corinthians 12, where the Apostle Paul famously mentioned his “thorn in the flesh.” York asked, “Wouldn’t you like to see one of these healers on TV put their hands on somebody and say, ‘Just a minute; God says you’ve got to stay sick’”?

We’re probably never going to see that. It doesn’t make for good TV. We prefer happy endings. We expect the problem to get resolved by the end of the show. And if, God forbid, the problem doesn’t get fixed, we say, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

York pointed out that Paul was arguably the greatest servant of the Lord in history, yet when Paul asked God to relieve him of his malady, God told Paul, “I want you to keep it.”

As a preacher I’ve made it my mission to make the orthodox Christian faith as clear and understandable as I can. But sometimes we just have to sit with two seemingly contradictory ideas. Anglican Priest Tish Harrison Warren writes that, “Perplexity is built into the Christian faith. Ours is not primarily a faith of explanation, but of salvation.”

There’s a reason it’s called the Christian “Faith,” and not the Christian “Logic” or the Christian “Proof.”

Sorry, but we often get more than we can handle.

But not more than God can handle.