The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’”
—Judges 7:2 NIV

If you’ve ever played the board game Risk, you know how it works. If you have a bigger army than the neighboring territory, the odds are that you’ll probably win the battle.

The same usually holds true in real life: the bigger, better equipped army tends to win on the battlefield.

So you can imagine how surprised Gideon must have been when God told him, “Your army is too big.”

God actually wanted the odds to be against Gideon.

Why?

Because the less ideal the situation, the more clear it would be that God had brought the victory.

The Imperfect Nativity and the story of Gideon teach us this lesson: God chooses imperfect places and people to write his best stories because he wants it to be clear that he has no rival.

Our brokenness truly is the most fertile ground for God to write his perfect story.

Here’s a simple prayer to carry with you today:

Breathe in: God of unlikely odds,
Breathe out: Display your might in me.