Miracle shoes?

A funny thing happened on Easter Sunday. Our son Isaac has this annoying habit of taking his shoes off and throwing them while he's in the car. Usually the shoes end up on the floor in front of the car seat, but not always. On Easter Sunday my wife and I invited my father in law to come to our church. To give you an idea of the kind of faith my father in law has, often when my wife and I are driving a long distance, like to Albuquerque and back, he'll pray that the Spirit of God translates us directly to our location so that we won't have to drive that far....and he actually believes it'll happen. It never has, but he still prays it regularly. My father in law is the kind of person that wakes up every morning and asks the Holy Spirit what he should wear and where he should go out to eat for lunch that day. It's the "crazy" kind of faith that to the uninitiated looks a lot like lunacy.

Back to the story: Isaac threw his shoe. My wife and I looked all over the car for it. I mean all over. For 10-15 minutes. We finally took Isaac inside with only one shoe (sort of a punishment, but he didn't care). Then Eliot (my father in law) continued to look for the shoe for about another 20 minutes before he finally gave up and came inside. I mean a full twenty minutes!

Church is now over. My wife and I look for about another 10 minutes. Eliot continues to look. Eliot gets in his car. All of the sudden I notice that Isaac's shoe is sitting right next to the car seat. The same place that we had looked over and over and over...and it wasn't there. I said something to the effect of "Oh my! The shoe just appeared out of nowhere!" and Eliot says to me, "I prayed that if the shoe is in the car, that God would put it in plain sight, and if the shoe is not in the car, that God would put it in the car."

Strange, isn't it?

I'm fully aware that there's probably a natural explanation for this (though I can't think of a credible one off the bat). But still, if God exists (as I believe He does) then why would it be so unbelievable that He could make a shoe appear out of nowhere? And why should brainy intellectual types like me (okay...wannabe brainy intellectual...are you happy?) disregard what seems to be the "crazy" kind of faith that my father in law seems to display every day? If God exists (again, I believe He does) then where's the line between normal faith and crazy faith?

Why am I asking this question? Because the following week, the exact same thing happened. Same amount of time spent looking for the shoe. Same "crazy" prayer. Same shoe seemingly appearing out of nowhere and put right in front of our eyes.

Coincidence?

Maybe.

Even so, could God be teaching me something?

Am I listening?

A response to my Sojourners article

I didn't expect anyone to actually try to answer the questions I raised in my article "I know that Jesus is the answer, but what does that mean?" .which also appeared on Sojourners...but someone did.

Heidi from Evangelicals for Social Action wrote an excellent response:

Read it here.