God wants you to buy this laptop...

I hit a couple President's Day sales this morning - what better way to appreciate Washington and Lincoln than buy a couple routers and hard drives? My first stop was Staples. When I got there about 10 minutes before they opened. Being that it was 18 degrees (according to the temperature display on my car, which probably can't be trusted), most people were waiting in their cars. The one exception was a woman and her teenage son waiting outside.

I got in and grabbed the couple items I wanted and went to check out. The woman in front of me was the woman from outside. She was buying a Compaq laptop that they had on sale for $480 AR. While she was checking out, someone mentioned that there were only 2 (because employees had bought the rest, as he admitted) and the woman responded something to the effect of "Praise the Lord. See, God works. If you are obidient, he rewards you."

Now I believe in God - I can't think of any other way the world could have come into being without some sort of active creation. But I tend to be less positive on the details. I have trouble seeing God as a micromanager, someone who steps in for the smallest things. I'm not convinced, quite frankly, that God really cares who gets the last discounted laptop at Staples.

But I think the praising-God thing also sells oneself short. She didn't get the laptop because God wanted her to. She got the laptop because she was smart enough to read the sales circulars, to get to the store early, and willing to brave the cold to get it. Maybe God inspires people to do things, but in the end it's people's own actions that makes things happen.