All of us face difficulties in life. Some of them are just ordinary difficulties, such as living on a budget, but others can be more serious.

Many have the belief that God never gives us more than what we can handle. This comes from a passage from the Bible (Corinthians‬ ‭10:13‬), where it’s said: “No temptation has overtaken you, except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

However, this doesn’t apply to everyone. Materialistic people live under the law of Karma, therefore often they get difficulties that are indeed more than they can handle. The law of Karma acts mechanically, giving one the results of his past sinful activities, without consideration for what he or she can handle or not. Since a materialist is not interested in God, He doesn’t participate in his life, it is just him and the clockwork of material nature.

For a devotee, however, things are different. A devotee is constantly praying to Krsna and chanting His names, and thus Krsna becomes present in his life. By chanting the holy names, all the stored Karma is very quickly destroyed, leaving just the Karma that is already manifest (what we are supposed to go through during his life). This Prārabdha Karma is responsible for maintaining the body, and therefore it remains active until the end of our lives, giving us an opportunity to continue living in this body and using it to advance in spiritual life.

Not only a devotee is protected from all the Karma that is still unmanifested (aprārabdha Karma), but he or she is also protected from excessive reactions of the manifested Karma (Prārabdha). Krsna acts like a filter, examining the different results a devotee is supposed to receive and adjusting it according to what he or she can handle.

This doesn’t mean we will have completely peaceful lives, but Krsna protects us from strong reactions we would not be able to deal with. What comes are lessons we are supposed to learn and negative reactions to our past activities that are minimized to a level we can handle.

As Srila Prabhupada wrote in a letter to Von Paul Reed (2 January 1972):

“Sometimes it so happens that we have to suffer for our past sinful activities. But because we have taken to Krishna Consciousness and serving Krishna, we should know that any suffering we have to bear have been far reduced by the mercy of the Lord. Suffering must be there so long as we are conditioned in this material world, but for the devotees the suffering is minimized compared to that of the nondevotees. We have to tolerate any difficulties which come up, and somehow go on with our chanting, reading and routine work.”

With the right consciousness, we can transform positives into negatives, using the difficulties we face in life as opportunities to advance, just like Naradha Muni took the curse of not being able to reside in any place given by Daksa as a blessing since it would be something favorable for his service,

Different from the hopeless life of a materialist, for a devotee, everything is the mercy of Krsna. Together with the difficulties, Krsna sends us the strength to surpass them, to transform the negatives into positives. When we understand this, we start seeing the obstacles not as problems, but as opportunities to improve our consciousness and rise to higher levels of devotional service.