What is 100-to-1 Faith?

A few years ago my family was facing impossible odds. A terrible form of cancer was racing through my wife's body. Her odds of surviving a year were less than 1%.

That was one of the darkest valleys of my life, but it also taught me how to pray like never before. You see, prayer doesn't begin until things seem to be impossible. If things are probably going to work out fine, then prayer may not even be necessary. But if prayer is the only answer in sight, then you really learn how to pray with absolute faith.

Keep in mind, I was certainly not a prayer rookie. In fact, I always thought I was a prayer warrior. But the truth was that I always expected doctors to handle the miracles. Prayer was like a secret sauce, added on top of the doctors' handiwork. It seemed to help--it provided a little extra oomph--but when the doctors ran out of options, well... Then it was time for us to just accept the inevitable.

It took a crisis like this to teach me that God loves impossible situations. This same God who spoke light and life to the chaos and death on the first page of the Bible, wanted desperately to bring light and life to our hopeless situation. The truth is, I never really asked. It seemed too big--too impossible--too crazy.

Do you know the story of Gideon? It's in chapter 7 of the Book of Judges. God's people kept getting hammered, and they prayed for a leader. God sent them Gideon (an unlikely choice, but we'll talk about that later). Of course, Gideon couldn't win any battles by himself so he called for volunteers. He got 32,000 men ready to follow him into battle.

I don't know about you, but if I ever need help and get 32,000 folks ready to lay down their very lives to support me, I'm going to drop the mic and walk off. BOOM! The battle is over!

But God wasn't having it. God told Gideon to send home 2/3 of his volunteers. Why? Because any fool could win a battle when the enemy is outnumbered. That's not a miracle. That's just an old fashioned whooping. God wasn't looking for a human victory. God wanted a victory against all odds. God wanted a miracle. So the army was cut again and again, until it numbered just 300.

In other words, God cut the army by a ratio of 100-to-1. When it came time for the battle, God's army did not have the numbers to overwhelm anybody. They didn't have to. They blew their horns and broke some clay jars. The enemy did more damage to themselves trying to run away than the army did with those horns.

That's the way God works. It may look like you are hopelessly outmatched, but relax! One puff of breath from the almighty and all of that fear blows away. That is how we know it's a miracle. And that is how we know God's gonna win.