In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Dayಮಾದರಿ

IMPOSSIBLE ODDS

The way I figure it, when Benaiah went into pit to kill a lion, as we saw yesterday, he faced about a hundred-to-one shot of coming out alive. But Benaiah did what lion chasers do. He defied the odds.

Sometimes God allows the odds to be stacked against us so He can reveal more of His glory. Nothing else explains the counterintuitive military strategy we see in Judges 7.

Gideon’s army of thirty-two thousand men is vastly outnumbered by the Midianites. They are already underdogs when the Lord says, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands.”

God tells Gideon to discharge anyone who is afraid, and Gideon loses two-thirds of his army. Now he’s down to ten thousand men, and the oddsmakers adjust the point spread.

Then the Lord says it again: “There are still too many men.”

Gideon’s army goes to get a drink of water, and God tells him to dismiss the men who drink like a dog. That leaves Gideon with an “army” of three hundred men.

The odds had to be a million to one at this point.

So why does God do it that way? “If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength. (Judges 7:2 NLT)”

Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives. We want everything in our favor. But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions. Maybe faith is trusting God no matter how impossible the odds are. Maybe our impossible situations are opportunities to experience a new dimension of God’s glory.

“All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27 NIV).

What is it you’re hoping for that seems hopeless, or nearly so? What could you do today to start trusting in a God who can vanquish impossible odds?