1 Corinthians 10:13 No testing has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
"Cora" had been through hurricanes in her coastal city before, but not quite like this one. She trembled with every gust of powerful wind that rattled her creaking windows. She anxiously watched nearby ditches fill with water, recede, and fill again. Cora's home lost power; all her refrigerator and freezer contents were ruined.
"Rita" could understand. Her home had been flooded in a prior hurricane. She was able to help Cora by empathizing and by sharing concrete actions Cora could take, based on Rita's own experience.
We may interpret Paul's 1 Corinthians comments to mean that the Lord knows our limits and may test us to the breaking point. But we often miss the last part of the passage; God also provides a way out of our troubles. That way is often through community, as Paul was not writing to an individual, but to a collective group called the church.
In my book on responding to crisis, The Next Thing, I suggest to prayerfully trust that God will place trustworthy individuals in front of you. Again, the idea is that God can help you handle tough times through community.
Paul Sampley writes of this passage in 1 Corinthians:
"With every test, the faithful, dependable God will make sure it is something you can collectively handle, or God will provide an exodus as in olden times."
In reality, Cora found it difficult to handle the stress and logistics she faced after the hurricane. But the community, in the form of Rita, came alongside her to lend an ear and new tools for addressing the crisis. If the community wasn't enough as Cora endured this test, scripture says God would have provided an exodus, a liberation, an off-ramp, as we see in the stories of Abraham and Moses.
Let us turn to each other and to God in times of trouble, and we will not be disappointed.
The image is offered by Urban Houstonian under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.
The license link is https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
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