Life can be overwhelming. A condition ushered in by half-cocked escorts of varying personalities from the craziness of daily responsibilities, to an unforeseen turned corner, to a rogue wave crashing in, knocking you to the deck, leaving you breathless and disoriented.

We have all become jugglers, keenly aware of how many balls we can keep moving through the air with sharpened toss-catch techniques. Then out of nowhere, an unexpected ball is hurled into our juggling loop, the wrong size and weight, rocking our rhythmic balance, and the balls, that are ours to keep moving, start falling like a hail storm. It gets ugly fast. Been there? Me too. In the middle of a crash, God helped me with a word picture.

Life was rolling full tilt; all of my energies and abilities pushed up to maximum. I was running low on stamina; reserves nearly drained.  One afternoon, life threw me that big, weighty, unexpected ball and I began unraveling. Leaning against a wall, tears flowing, crying out to my Abba Father, “Lord, I can’t do this. Look! Can you see? I have all these wires connected to me, each representing someone or something needing a part of me. Each claiming my focus and energy and I have no more to give. I am burned out. Depleted. I can’t deal with this.”

When my wailing quieted, in His gentle way, He spoke to me. “Look down at your hand and tell me what you see.” I did. “Nothing, Lord. I see nothing.” “Look again, daughter.” Then He opened the eyes of my mind to what I needed to see. Laying across the palm of my hand was a large power cord connected to a dangling plug, that hung limp in the dead air. 

He continued speaking to my heart. “Why do you expect to have endless energy to feed other’s needs, when the cord to your own source of power lies unplugged in your hand? I never asked you to do this alone. I never expected you to handle everything with your own power. 

What I have taught you is that you need to abide in me. (John 15:4-5) Stay plugged into me. I am your life source. I provide the strength and energy you need on a moment by moment basis to handle whatever I have allowed into your life. When you unplug from Me, intentionally or not, and try to do it on your own, your life-light will quickly begin to crackle and dim within you. Remember, you can do nothing of importance apart from me.” 

Contrary to a popular adage, God will absolutely give us more than we can handle. But He will not give us more than He can handle. What He intends, as life becomes overwhelming, is that we will lean into Him, relying on Him to meet our need so we can, in turn, meet the needs of others. 

“Great is our Lord and mighty in power.” Psalm 147:5 

“Power and might are in your hand.” 2 Chronicles 20:6  

Knowledge of truth is not enough. It’s the application of knowledge, through faith, that yields power. We must stay plugged into our Source, available to His children at all times, in all circumstances, by abiding in Him. Remaining in Him. Having regular fellowship with Him. Being loyal to Him. Residing with Him daily. Staying connected to Him in the hard.

Walking through our daily lives, if we remain in Him, having a firm grip on His hand as He walks with us, when those unexpected waves crash in, our tendency will not be to run, embracing fear and angst, but our response will be to throw ourselves into His arms, clinging to Him, receiving His strength and assurance that together we’ve got this. Our condition changes from being overwhelmed with circumstances, to being overwhelmed with His love and compassion. And while we heal and rest in His arms, through His supernatural power, He will sustain all of our “critical” juggled balls so that not one will fall.

Photo by Issam Hammoudi on Unsplash