State Fair Reality

Two week ago, my entire extended family embarked on the annual Minnesota State Fair adventure.  About an hour into the fair, my younger brother, Rein, discovered that he had lost his wallet. After a few frantic moments of searching through his pockets and even the stroller, he sprinted off to re-trace his steps, only to return to us later downtrodden and empty-handed.

I had just recently completed Paul Miller’s book “A Praying Life” in which he wrote “Prayer is a moment of incarnation—God with us. God involved in the details of my life." Details. Immediately this quote came to mind and I remembered that I worship the Creator of the universe, a Being so powerful He merely had to speak the words “let there be” and the world was formed.   Think about that.  He spoke our world into existence.  (I wish I could speak my bed into making itself!)

But so, I thought, if God could speak the world into existence, surely He had the power to return my brother’s wallet.  And so I began to pray.  It went something like this:

Dear God, I know you are aware of what just happened with Rein’s wallet and I ask that you somehow return it to him.  Maybe even allow some kind person….

And there I suddenly stopped.  I looked around at the crammed streets.  Who was I kidding?  The average daily attendance for the State Fair is often over one hundred and fifty. Thousand.  And we were there on opening day.  Great.  My brother’s wallet was gone.  The chances of an honest person finding his wallet were, in my opinion, impossible—none of them could be so compassionate. In the few seconds it had taken me to scan the streets, Reality had been completely forgotten.  I instead replaced Reality with reality, exchanging God’s Truth for the perceived harshness and certainty of my own situation.  No longer was God the supreme power of the universe, whose love for His children is so great that not even the mundane events or circumstances of our lives are too trivial for His attention.  That God no longer had the power to act, not against this many people.  For Him to act was unrealistic, statistically inconceivable even.  And so, what had begun as a genuine and heartfelt prayer came to an abrupt end with a quick “nevermind.”  Case closed.

Or so I thought.  But God had something else in mind. Even though I had written Him off, God was about to make me completely aware of His intimate involvement in the day-to-day details of my life. Within only a few hours of my “nevermind”, God came forward to shatter my pre-conceived notions of Him by reshaping my day—it was there, in the most unexpected turn of events, that I encountered the living God of the universe.   

It thus came about that as we were leaving the State Fair a family member encouraged my brother to check the Lost and Found.  I confess that after the day’s earlier disappointment, I thought this to be a waste of time.  As I waited with my family for my brother’s return, all of my earlier skepticisms come flooding back.  In my mind I chided my brother’s carelessness and criticized myself for believing in the possible goodness of these thousands of other fair-goers. I confess that I even wished a mound of guilty torment on the wallet’s finder and keeper.  Visibly agitated, I was just turning to impatiently ask my mom what was taking my brother so long, when, to my shock, he came running towards us.  Face beaming, he waved, holding in his hand the lost wallet.  Not a single thing was missing—everything was accounted for, from his gift cards, driving permit and debit card, down to even the neatly folded one hundred dollar bill. 

I was stunned.  As the family gathered excitedly around Rein, I couldn’t help but remember my last words towards God—“nevermind.”  Though I hadn’t recognized it earlier, those eight letters had been a denial of God, for their roots lay coiled around disbelief, skepticism, and ultimately a lack of faith.  I was ashamed of myself, for I had doubted both my Father’s will and ability to act, and yet He had done both.   Once more, God had reached down to prove Himself to me, to validate His authority and actively demonstrate His tender care for His children. 

And so, as convicting as this experience was, I am blessed that God acted as He did.  Prior to this, I often stated that nothing is too great for God’s attention, and yet I myself often failed to believe those same words.  The reason I know this is because I wouldn’t come to God with what I perceived as “trivial” matters—they weren’t big enough or important enough for me to bother His time with.  Now, however, every time that I begin to doubt I am reminded of God’s presence that day at the State Fair and reassured that nothing is too far below or beyond His power to act.  As His child, my heavenly Father longs for me to come before Him and cast all my cares and burdens on Him, even the dirtiest of details.  Though He is the highest Being in the universe and thus has a hand over all my life, He longs to be invited into the particulars of my life.  As I lay these at His feet, I surrender myself to His loving care.  He will act in accordance with His will, and His will is to bring about my greatest good and His highest glory.  What greater comfort is there than to surrender our details to the Creator of details?  Will we relinquish them to Him, or will we hide them away, keeping them to ourselves with a faithless “nevermind”?