Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear.

• Genesis 4:13

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

• John 16:12-15

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

• Philippians 4:6-7

There is a common expression that God does not give us more than we can bear.

That statement is not in the Bible.  Indeed, the first two Scriptures above fly in the face of that remark.  God does not modify His punishment of Cain.  He only alleviates Cain’s fear of being killed by placing the mark of Cain upon him.  No one would be allowed to kill the one who had the mark of Cain.  Odd, when the Mosaic Law comes out, it states a life for a life.  Yet, Cain and his family are given Mercy in this case, but Cain says it is more than he can bear.

In the other Scripture Jesus admits that until the Holy Spirit comes, what He is telling them is more than they can bear.  He states it flat out.

So, the problem that I have with God not giving us more than we can bear is that when God gives us trials by fire, we cannot bear them at all without God in us.  And when it comes to God within us, we may find that we can bear a lot more than we thought we could.  But that does not mean that it will not be excruciatingly painful.

This morning, the day I wrote this, I had an in-office procedure done.  They went inside while I was awake and aware, and it was not pleasant.  When the doctor stops what he is doing to tell you, “Start breathing slowly and rhythmically until I am done.”  That is when you are about to feel the most unpleasant sensation you have felt in a long time.  I will not say “pain” and women who have used natural childbirth know pain far beyond the unpleasant sensation that I felt this morning.  But they have a baby to hold afterwards.  I was shown a weird peace of plastic about six inches long that had been place inside me when I was anesthetized.

But the deal is I beared the sensation, and I am delighted that the hunk of plastic is no longer in my body.  A mother bears the pain of natural childbirth.  She is overjoyed in having the resultant child.

But there are many pains in life that are hard to deal with.

With my recent kidney stone incident and the colon surgery prior to that, at times, I could not sit down without a great deal of pain.  At other times, my head would swim from the ill feeling that overtook me.

The last time that I missed a day posting something was in May of 2018, when I was in the hospital with a different kidney stone.  I have tried to be ahead of schedule.  I got more than four weeks ahead of schedule, and a thought came to me, “If God is allowing me to be this far ahead of schedule, what is about to happen?”  It was that God giving me no more than I could bear routine.  The horrible thing was that after I was healthy enough to get back on schedule, with the six-inch piece of plastic (a ureter stent) inside my body, I had developed lazy habits.  Maybe the illness had drained my reserves, but now healthy, I was taking daily naps.

And as my mental fortitude got my lazy body back in the mode of writing, I checked my mail to find roughly 500 unread emails.  I think that I did not delete any ultra important ones, but if I did not read one of your posts, I apologize.

But, I had to redefine my personal expectations.  Maybe God does not want me writing these posts and reading all those emails, and reviewing Bible study videos, and preparing to teach a Sunday school class.  I had given myself more than I could bear.

Then God shook me hard and asked me to reevaluate the priorities.  When the writing picked back up, I was down to barely over two weeks ahead of schedule.  But God is good, all the time.  I reprioritized.  I deleted a lot of emails.  And most importantly, I left the rest up to God, and in about three days, I am almost up to three-weeks ahead.

God tells us to be anxious for nothing because He knows what is written on the next page.

And I am more relaxed because I know God’s plan works.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.