Gideon’s army of thirty-two thousand men is enormously outnumbered by the Midianites when God tells him, ‘You have too many men.’ He instructs Gideon to release anyone who is afraid, and Gideon loses two-thirds of his army. Now he has only ten thousand men. Again the Lord says, ‘There are still too many men,’ and reduces Gideon’s army to three hundred men. At that moment, the odds had to be a million to one. And it even gets better! God directs Gideon to attack the Midianites with trumpets and pitchers. Now for the real kicker: Israel wins! Why did God do it like that? Because if Gideon had attacked with thirty-two thousand men and won, the Israelites would have thought that God didn’t provide much help, and God would have received limited credit. But God is worthy of more. God desires and deserves complete credit. And when three hundred men defeat a massive army with trumpets and pitchers, God receives all the glory (see Judges 7). Why? The reason is a victory like that overcomes all odds. Too frequently, our prayers revolve around requesting God to increase our odds of winning. We would like everything in our favour. But maybe God wants the odds to oppose us so we can encounter a miracle of divine proportions. Faith is trusting God no matter how hopeless the odds are. Our impossible circumstances are chances to experience a new height of God’s glory. Are you facing a situation that, humanly speaking, is beyond your ability to cope with it? Read this: ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God’ (2 Corinthians 3:5 NKJV).
