“Finding God at the State Fair” by Paul Strawn

Post by Nathan Rinne

Today is the last day of the very popular Minnesota State Fair (you still have several hours to get in on the action!).

We went on opening day, a couple of Thursdays ago, and I thank my son Sam for taking the pictures you see in this blog post.

The great piece which follows on finding God at the State Fair was written by my pastor, Paul Strawn, in our church’s September newsletter. I hope you enjoy it!:

A common question, it seems, is how people discover whether or not God is working in their lives. Assumed is that God exists, but He only interacts with people now and then to achieve what He wants to achieve. Of course believers, like the prophets, even like Jesus Himself, have better access to God, are more consistent in their interaction with God, and so enjoy more of God’s attention—so such thinking goes. God is therefore like a basketball coach, or a band director, or a teacher, who cannot help and advise everyone all the time, but must focus his or her attention on individuals, one person at a time.

The trick? How to get God’s attention! Proximity would appear to help. When I was in band in high school the flutes and clarinets seemed to dominate the attention of our director, mostly because they were sitting right in front of him! In basketball it was the talented, the tall, that garnered more of the coach’s time. Perhaps in business it is the workers who are of greatest importance to the success of a project that enjoy the lion’s share of the boss’s attention.

Ultimately, no matter what the method used, the quest, the desire, for help, for attention from one who is greater, or higher, or has more authority and power than we have is understandable. And so understandable as well is the question as to how to get God’s attention, so that we can have Him work in our lives for us in some way! In any way!

The funny thing is, God is working in all of our lives, every single day. And in countless ways.

Need proof? Go to the state fair. There you will see how God works through all those around us to provide for us daily all that we need to support this body and life. Wherever you turn at the state fair, from the hog barn, to the miracle of birth center, to the radio and television venues, to the science building, to machinery hill, to the heritage center, to the world market, to the education building, the 4-H building, etc. you will discover how our loving heavenly Father works each day to sustain us with food, clothing, medicine, education, work, in short, everything we need! Thought about in this way, it truly is overwhelming!

How do we understand this? Martin Luther used the idea of the “masks of God,” that is, whenever we receive what we need to live from another person we are receiving it from God, wearing the mask, as it were, of that person, of our friend, or coworker, or parent, or even a stranger. When someone at a food stand hands us a treat, it is God who is doing so. When we are being taught how to tend bees, it is God who is doing so. When we are helped to find something we are looking for, it is God who is helping us find it.

Yes, I know, the state fair can seem like a bit of excess, of all sorts of people making all sorts of effort to somehow separate us from the few dollars that we have in our pocket. And what do we get in return? Sunburn, sore feet, and a few extra pounds that will take weeks to work off!

But what really is going on there? Is it not an annual opportunity—really the only opportunity I know of—for us to be reminded of just how many ways our loving heavenly Father takes care of us? Psalm 145 is, at the end of the day, simply true: “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

FIN