When you go through seasons where you feel — and are — utterly overwhelmed, here’s the ultimate reason:
“For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death itself. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
Obviously Paul is speaking of great affliction here. But that doesn’t mean this only applies literally when your life is in danger or at risk.
We often limit the scope of what suffering is to only large, dramatic things — and this is unbiblical, as I’ve argued elsewhere.
This passage here applies to all forms of suffering, great and small.
Even if it feels like a small thing in relation to everything else going on in the world, when you feel overwhelmed there is a purpose behind that: it is to to lead you to rely more and more not on yourself, but on God.