Ignoring the Odds
Ignoring the Odds
You’ve had it happen to you. You’re in a tough situation, you pray about it, and the Spirit of God answers—but not in the way you’d expect. You find the Lord Jesus asking you to handle your tough situation in a way you would have never expected!
Let’s say it’s a problem in the office. After much prayer, you sense the Spirit of God urging you to talk to your supervisor.
No way, Lord! you say to Him. If I bring these things up before my boss, my job security goes down the drain!
But despite your protests, the Spirit of Christ keeps prompting you to handle that tough situation His way—not in the manner you would normally choose.
Isn’t that just like the Lord? We think God should have us manage a sticky job situation or domestic tangle one way (the “obvious” way, the “logical” way). After all, handling the matter with simple common sense improves your odds that everything will turn out right … right?
Wrong! God often calls us to ignore the odds, asking us to face our problems His way. And His way is sometimes most unorthodox.
Have you ever taken time to consider General Joshua’s dilemma, described in Joshua 6? The Lord met with Joshua prior to the battle of Jericho, identifying Himself as “the commander of the army of the Lord.”
What a relief, Joshua may have thought. Now the Lord will lay out an infallible battle plan for attacking that powerful, walled city.
Well, he got his battle plan, all right. But it certainly couldn’t have been what he was expecting. Talk about an irrational, unorthodox way of handling a problem! Think about it. The Lord wanted Joshua and his army to march around Jericho for six days without saying a word. Then on the seventh day, they were to make the circuit seven times, listen for a trumpet blast, and then yell real loud!
Now I ask you, does that sound like common sense?
The book of Joshua, however, records that the Israelites followed God’s instructions to a T. In spite of the risks, in the face of ridiculous odds, they simply did as the Lord had said. The result was one of the most dazzling victories in Israel’s long history.
What is God asking you to do today that seems a little … unorthodox? Has the Commander of the Lord’s army presented you with a highly unusual battle plan?
Ignore the odds and obey.
In the long run, you can’t lose.