The Odds Are Ever In Your Favor by Nancy White
You have probably heard this more than once: “If I were a betting man…” Typically, it is followed by what they would bet on. If you are going to bet, you look for the best odds.
In the Hunger Games trilogy, when annually sending 24 children out to fight in a horrific battle to the death against one another, they always said, “may the odds be ever in your favor.” The odds were 24 to 1 against you coming out alive. Not good odds, especially when it comes to life and death.
Well, I’m not a betting man, but even if I was, I would never bet against God. In fact, when it comes to God, regardless of what the situation looks like or how the sides line up, the odds are ever in favor of anyone who stands on the side of God.
In the Beth Moore study of the book of Daniel (Daniel Lives of Integrity Words of Prophesy, 2006 Lifeway Press), Moore brings up the story of the victory of a small band of Jews, the Maccabees, over the more powerful Syrian army (page 164). Moore concludes: “He is the God who beats all odds.”
Of course the Maccabees are not the only example of our great God who “beats all odds.” What about Gideon? When we first hear of Gideon, he is hiding from the Midianites so that he can thresh his wheat without them taking it from him. (Judges 6:11) Not the typical stuff heroes are made of. At God’s command, Gideon assembles an army to go after the Midianites. But God did not like the odds. He felt Gideon’s army was too big and forced him to cull it down to just 300 men.
Three hundred men, armed with lamps and pitchers and trumpets and (most importantly) God, defeated the Midianite army that day.
God freed a people who had been enslaved for hundreds of years – freed them from THE most powerful country of its day – without any of them having to lift a sword – using a “tongue-tied” herder as His messenger and (most importantly) His own mighty miracles.
God took 12 men – fishermen and tax collectors and other ordinary guys – from being frightened and fleeing students to powerful, faithful preachers and martyrs for the Kingdom. If I was a betting man, I might have bet against Peter sticking it out and being faithful through a martyr’s death based on his denial of Jesus during His trial.
But one should never bet against God, God’s will or God’s plans. Not when He is fighting on behalf His people. Not when He is fighting alongside us. The odds are always, always, always in the favor of His children.
The God we worship is not just the God of spectacular battles. He is not just the God of miraculous plagues that wreck a nation.
He is the God who swoops in with peace to replace my fear. He is the God who helps an alcoholic put down that drink and commit to getting sober, again. He is the warrior that helps me fight gossip as it sits on the tip of my tongue. He is the God who turns a heart of anger and hate to one of love and kindness.
He is the God who claims the death of His faithful saints as victory and who presides victorious of death itself.
Whatever the battle you are fighting today, sweet, tired soldier, with God on your side, the odds are ever in our favor. Success is guaranteed. And you can bet on that!
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