Look again at what Paul says: they were burdened excessively, even to the point that they thought they were going to die. The next verse fills this out a bit more:

"indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves…."

I don't think Paul is exaggerating here -- remember that on several occasions Paul came within inches of death. Here, in his letter to the church at Corinth, he is merely stating a fact: he had resigned himself to death.

This is not exactly what we want to hear, is it? We are far more comfortable with verses such as John 10.10b:

"I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly"

and Psalm 27.13:

"I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living".

Yet here it is, in scripture: Paul, by going about his ministry in faith, found himself at death's door, and expected to go through it.

Paul was not alone in this respect. Throughout the scriptures, the great men and women of God have found themselves in hopeless situations beyond their capacities. Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Gideon, Hannah, Samson, Jehoram, Jeremiah, Elizabeth and Zacharias, and Mary all encountered imposisble situations. But in every case, even when the people doubted, God came through and accomplished the impossible. We need only think of the famous line from the 23rd Psalm: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou are with me. In fact, David had lots of situations like this!

We are uncomfortable as soon as we find ourselves outside of our own abilities, whether we be looking at death, or life, or war, or peace. But looking through the Bible, it seems that this is in fact the way God operates. Our problem is not in being over our heads in a situation, but in assuming that the situation signals God's rejection of us! We seem to think that when God is working with us, we will never get into these situations.

Biblically speaking, the truth is the opposite. And if you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense that this would be the case. Why would God lead us to the point where we can honestly do no more? Why would God throw us in over our heads? To show the world God's own power! It's that simple!

But let's take a closer look. In fact, let's look at what Paul says about in the remainder of the passage we started with:

"we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us…."

God intentionally moves us to a point at which we must abandon all of our self-reliance (and any hope of human rescue) in order that we should trust solely in him.

Why does this make sense? Think of it this way: the world by and large does not believe that our God exists. Or if they do believe in God, they think God is too unconcerned or distant to take an active role in our daily lives. And why shouldn't they? There are over 5 billion people on this planet: How could one God actively watch over all of us at one time. Consider as well the large numbers who are dying from famine, disease, war, etc., and you have a pretty case for God's absence in our world.

This is exactly the attitude that God wants to disprove: God IS alive, and IS working, and DOES care about each and every one of us. But how do you convince a world that does not believe in you that you exist? You perform the miraculous. You show that those people who have faith in you are able to perform superhuman feats of love, of healing, and of forgiveness. You show that where human strength stops, your strength is more than sufficient.

But there's a catch to this, right? You have to let humanity get to a point where it cannot find a way out of its problems. Why? Because if we as human beings could do these things ourselves, we still wouldn't have any reason to believe in God! If God never gave us more than we could bear, then we wouldn't need God, would we? If we could bear all things without God, we could just as easily ignore him and continue on with our lives, yes?

But of course you will say that we still need God to ensure that we only encounter what we can bear. And there's some truth to this -- we can never know how much God is keeping us safe from. But this will not be of any use to the world that desperately wants to see that God exists and that God cares. For saying that God is real simply because he doesn't let us get in over our heads is like invoking the angels to explain the motion of the planets. The world has seen plenty of people overcome tremendous odds without any faith in God! What the world wants to see is someone overcoming impossible odds by passively trusting in God.

I said either last week or the week before (see "Jeremiah 24" and "Isaiah 58") that God always follows a message such as this with a message of hope. Here the hope is in two places: first, in Paul's salvation. The very fact that he is writing this account means that God did in fact rescue him from his situation. As all the men and women I listed above found out, God is more than faithful to accomplish his desires with us: saving us from death, giving children to the barren, raising up a leader to deliver the nation, or making a shepherd into a king -- all of these God is willing and able to do, and all of these are witnesses to us and to the world of God's existence, love, and mighty power.

But for Paul, the hope also resides in a second place. Look at the first few verses of this letter. Paul states in v.6 that our afflictions are for the sake of the comfort and salvation of other believers. Why? Because God will be faithful to deliver his anointed workers as a testimony to those who are watching with baited breath. Again, the witness is to the world around us. In order to reach all people with the good news of the gospel, God must show the world that God and God alone can carry them beyond the limits of human strength and endurance.

All we have to do is learn to trust that when we find ourselves over our heads, we are finally at the place where God is able to work.

Truly, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God! S.D.G.!

In Christ,
Steve