The Keys Miracle

This is one of the great blessing stories that the Lord, out of His great mercy gave to my son and I.  I love telling this story to young people, especially pre-teens.  It shows God’s love and concern for each of His children.
Following our first mission trip, we went to serve in El Paso for the summer of 1996.  We also went for the summer of 1997.  In May of 1998 we sold everything and my family moved from Minnesota to El Paso, Texas, to live there full time.  When we left Minnesota for El Paso for the summer of 1997, my wife and I and our three teenage children went in our station wagon pulling a U-Haul trailer.  When I travel, I really don’t like having the car so full of stuff that it is packed up around your ears.  Since we had a trailer, I put as much as I could in the trailer.  The drink cooler, that had our water and sodas, was packed in that trailer.  The trailer, of course, had a padlock on it.  The single key that I had for the padlock was on my keychain.  Now whenever we stopped at a truck stop or wayside rest, anyone who wanted something to drink, would take my keys, open the trailer, get a drink, and then close the trailer door.  I was very clear to everyone about one particular point.  If you open that trailer to get a drink, don’t set the keys down in the trailer.  Because if you forget the keys and close the door and lock that padlock, our keys will be inaccessible and we will have a big problem!  We were about halfway between Minnesota and Texas when we stopped at a truck stop.  My wife and my 14 year-old daughter went in to the truck stop.  My 16 year-old daughter stayed in the car, and my 13 year-old son asked if he could get a drink.  I said sure, and gave him the keys.  He went back to the trailer, opened it, got his drink, closed it, and came back to the car.  He opened the door, and as soon as he got in, he said “Oh no!”  And I cringed.  I said, “What?”  He said, “I locked the keys in the trailer!”  I remember closing my eyes, thinking, “I’m this missionary now, and I’m not suppose to get mad!”  So I said (gruffly), “Okay, this is what we’re going to do.  I will go into this truck stop, get a hacksaw, cut the lock, get the keys, buy another lock, put it on, and we’ll be on our way!”  Now, I had always told my children that the first thing you always do when you have a problem, is to pray.  Prayer is always the first thing.  So my son, when I said I was going to get a hacksaw, said, “Dad, why don’t we pray?”  When he said that, I said exactly what was on my mind, “Pray what?”  He said, “Pray that God would get the keys out of the trailer”.  I was quiet for a moment, and said, “You pray!”  Because I didn’t want to pray for the impossible.  And I could tell that he felt bad as he prayed, “Lord, I’m sorry I left the keys in the trailer, would you please get them out of the trailer so my dad doesn’t have to go through so much trouble”.  As soon as He said “Amen”, I said, “I’m going to go get that hacksaw”.   And he said, “Dad, don’t you think God is going to answer the prayer?”  And I said, “No”.  And he said “Why not?”  Now this unbelieving father needed to come up with something somewhat spiritual to say to him, so I said, ”Because getting the keys out of the trailer is nothing that will further God’s kingdom”.  That sounded pretty good to me.  So I took two steps out of that car when my son yelled, “There’s the keys!!”  He and my daughter were jumping around the back joyfully and making the car rock!  “God answered my prayer!” my son yelled.  Needless to say, I was in shock.  There were the keys, way in the back of the station wagon, near the window.  After pushing my jaw up to close my mouth, I took a deep breath and said to my beaming son, “Adam, God had two lessons here.  The first lesson was to you.  That a simple honest prayer, believing God can do anything, He can and He will do it.  The second lesson was clearly to me.  God said, “Look buddy, don’t you try to tell one of my children that there is something I can’t do!”  At that point, all I could say was, “Yes Sir!”  So I am telling all of you reading this, there is nothing that God can’t do!

God’s Point in this story:     GOD CAN DO ANYTHING.

What is really interesting about this, is that this particular story many people have a hard time believing.   Could God, who made the sun stand still, made Peter walk on water, made water come out of a rock, rained food from heaven, created the whole universe, not get keys out of a little trailer?
The main lesson here was not for my son, who felt bad and wanted to ask God to solve a seemingly impossible problem.  My son had the faith to pray rather than wonder how God could logistically do this.  The main lesson was to me, the unbelieving father, whom the Lord had put there to teach this young Christian about God.  Praise God, He was not going to let me pass any of my unbelief to this young boy whom He loved.   Amen!