I’m learning what the Bible teaches: God specializes in ‘slim to none’

By Dean Collins

We have all seen moments with chances best described as “slim to none.” Many of these result in the predicted outcome. In Scripture we see many situations where, from a human perspective, we would agree that the main characters were facing slim-to-none possibilities for survival or success.

I suspect odds makers would have put slim-to-none odds on Joseph becoming the leader of Egypt when his brothers threw him in a pit and sold him to slave traders. Moses would have also had slim-to-none odds of getting the Israelites free from Pharaoh after 400 years of forced labor. David’s odds as a boy fighting a giant named Goliath would have been slim to none in the betting world. We could go on and on with examples. Today I want to expand on two of them.

Provision and protection

Elijah delivered a negative message to King Ahab. Bringing bad news to an evil king always results in a slim-to-none situation. But in this case, the situation seemed slim to none for both the evil king and Elijah the prophet. No rain for the foreseeable future or until Elijah said so was the message to the king. Maybe Ahab smirked at the suggestion that Elijah had that kind of power. The fact was, Elijah didn’t have that kind of power. But Elijah chose to obey the word of the Lord no matter what the risk or the odds.

Then what seemed to be a strange message from the Lord came to Elijah: “Hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” God knows the hearts of men, so he knew it would be dangerous for Elijah to hang around anywhere near Ahab and Jezebel. What probably seems odd is that God sent Elijah to the middle of nowhere for his protection. Seems like God being God could have protected Elijah right where he was, but he chose another path.

Peace and promise

Whether we like it or not we will have more peace if we just learn to trust God’s paths for us, even when we don’t understand them or they seem to put us in slim-to-none situations. Elijah had no time to prepare for his journey. He would have to learn to trust God for his provision and for his protection.

It’s also worth noting that throughout Scripture both before Jesus came and after the resurrection, following God is not safe according to the world’s way of understanding safety. Choosing the upside-down way of Jesus means we must learn that the ways of Jesus run against and not with the ways of the world and systems of men. Elijah would have to learn this from his experience in Cherith. We will have to learn the same in our wilderness seasons and likely more than once.

God was good to his word. Elijah found provision of water and food at Cherith. He lived by the brook Cherith. Every morning the ravens brought bread and meat, and every evening they did the same. But eventually, the brook dried up because God was true to his earlier word: There won’t be any rain until I say so.

We could argue from our perspective that God sometimes enjoys playing cruel jokes. But again, that is from our perspective. If you have followed Jesus for any length of time, though, you realize that he is a Lord of provision, a Lord of mystery, and a Lord who consistently does what is (as Paul said) exceedingly more than we could hope or expect.

From ‘slim’ to sure

Peter would learn what Elijah learned. It would take a while before trusting Jesus completely really settled into the fisherman’s life. It takes a while for us too. God is patient and kind and will always deliver on his promises. Peter and his colleagues were fishing one day and caught nothing. It was a long day, and the crew had pulled out their nets and were about to head for the shore when Jesus told them to drop their nets on the other side. I don’t know much about fishing. But it seems logical that if you were fishing for a long period of time, you would have already fished all sides of the boat. But after Peter let Jesus know they had tried everything, he said they would go along and cast their nets because Jesus told them to do it.

You know both the story of Elijah and the story of Peter. God provided for Elijah in what appeared to be a very unlikely situation. And because Peter responded in faith to the command of Jesus, he caught so many fish he had to take a few days to repair his nets due to the load of fish he caught.

Like Elijah and Peter, we too will have more than one experience where we do whatever we can and believe we are called to do, only to find ourselves in difficult if not impossible situations where the best we can do is trust God to show up and provide.

I’ve lived many decades following Jesus and I continue to watch, sometimes with some fear and eventually in amazement, at how God takes slim-to-none situations and turns them into his powerful testimonies of love and provision and uses someone like me in his kingdom story. We will probably both need each other’s encouragement from time to time as we live out our mission in God’s kingdom. But along the way, we will probably share some stories of our amazing God while we share a lunch of bread and water or a fish fry. God never fails us, even when the world might say our chances are slim to none.

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭17:1-7‬; ‭‭Luke‬ ‭5:4-11‬ ‭ESV

Photo by Martin Wyall at unsplash.com

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