Odds Mean Nothing in Eternity

The two books of Chronicles in the Bible aren’t generally considered the most interesting. I’ll admit, I’ve read them few times before on my way through the Bible and the most I remembered of them was the sense of achievement I felt when I finished them. There are a lot of names in there! (Which, coincidentally, are great for naming characters. At least, the ones I can pronounce…)

But recently, I studied 1 Chronicles in a Bible study and am still working through all the life-changing lessons I learnt through it. Yikes! Who knew! I love how the Bible is so alive like that.

One such moment was when King David sinned by taking a census of his fighting men. There’s nothing inherently wrong about taking a census. Some would say (and be right) that it’s a wise thing for a king to take a census. After all, he’s the king. He should know who he’s got in his armies. The sin came in that, in doing so, he wasn’t trusting God to win his battles. It didn’t matter to God how many men were in David’s armies. It mattered to God that David was trusting Him to win the battles.

Maybe it’s because I read it in a different version (The Message) or just because of all the things going on in my life at that point I read it but the moment when David realised what he’d done struck me so deep in the heart that I physically felt ill.

Then David prayed, “I have sinned badly in what I have just done, substituting statistics for trust; forgive my sin—I’ve been really stupid.” (1 Chronicles 21:8)

I don’t have a lot in common with King David. At all. He was a king, I’m a mum. He led wars and thousands of people, I’m flat out trying to get my two kids to do what I tell them. And that’s not even taking into account the vast differences in the places/times we live. But in that moment, I knew exactly what he felt. I’d been doing the same thing.

I have a nice long list of things I’m praying God will do in my life this year. Some of them are spiritual, most are more physical. They’re not small things, and they all need God (not me) to do them, but I know he can. I’d told him that over and over. My faith wasn’t the problem. My belief that God had to do it my way was. Along with asking him to do them, I’d been making sure he knew what order they had to be done – as if he didn’t know better than I did to start with. I wasn’t trusting that God knew all that already. I knew God could do it, but I wanted him to do it my way. Like David, I was substituting statistics for trust.

One of my favourite quotes is from a novel I read once (okay, I’ve read it lots of times!). It is simply this:

Odds mean nothing in eternity.

Every statistic in the world can point toward something failing, or succeeding, or anything else you like. But statistics mean nothing to God. He’s the God who made mothers of elderly and barren women, and one particular virgin. He’s the God who made a fortified city wall fall without a single person touching it. In one moment, the early church’s greatest persecutor turned greatest protector. God didn’t need David’s army to be huge – actually, I think he quite liked it super small. And he didn’t need me to tell him all the details of how all my plans needed to happen.

David put his faith in the strength of his army. I put my faith in the logic I knew to be true. Neither of us remembered that God is bigger than all that.

Don't make the same mistake I did in substituting statistics for trust. 

Odds mean nothing in eternity.