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No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB
God will never give you more than you can handle. The people that claim this usually reference this verse; but is that what is really being said right here? Let’s take a look and see just what Paul is stating.
“No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity.” First we see that all temptation we face is nothing new, any temptations and trials we encounter are essentially just the same as they faced thousands of years ago. What this means is that what you struggle with in regards to temptations is no different than what the first century Christians faced, or even the ancient Israelites. This means even sins that are related to issues that seem to be modern issues, like sins related to the internet, are just the same old sins just with new packaging. So what does this mean? It means that there are no sins that we will be tempted with that will surprise God.
The next part is where the concept of God not giving us more than we can handle comes in. “But God is faithful; He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.” If we were to just leave it at this then yes God will not give us more than we can handle in regards to temptation. The thing is with the next part, “but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it.” In other words God expects us to turn to Him when we face temptations, that is why Paul can state God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able. God wants us to rely on Him, to keep our eyes and focus on Him in all circumstances; just look at Peter when Christ was walking on the water, as long as Peter kept his eyes on Christ he was okay but once he lost his focus Peter started to sink.
So will God give us more than we can handle? If we keep our focus on God then no we will never encounter more than we can handle because we are relying on God; but if we are relying on ourselves and doing things in our own power then we will constantly finding ourselves in situations where we are encountering more than we can handle.
