You Can Handle It!

Hosea 1:2 (NASB)

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.”

I think we are all confronted with levels of sacrifice and pain that may seem unbearable to others. God knew that not everyone is personally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually able to handle what Hosea was commanded to do, but He did know Hosea could deal with it. God in His sovereign wisdom and eternal knowledge had complete confidence in Hosea’s behavior despite the complexity and difficulty of what he had to do.

Again, the same is true for each of us, God knows what we can and cannot handle, and He promises not to allow us to be in situations we cannot abide. Consider 1 Corinthians 10:13 (KJV)...

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

Essentially, if God allows you to encounter a circumstance, engage a problem, or endure a tragedy, it is only because He knows you can handle it, even if you don’t think you can. He even provides a way for you to find escape - not out of the situation, but while you are in it, so that you can indeed endure it in victory. The point is moot as to whether or not we could endure what Hosea did because He would never have even commanded us to do something we couldn’t. God will not put you in a situation He knows you cannot handle.