Attention, Please! This is a Test! | Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

I just got back from a speaking trip to Denver. My journey there was somewhat... interesting, to put it mildly. We landed in Minneapolis and I had 2.5 hours to get through immigration before my onward flight to Denver. I thought I'd have more than enough time. Now, the line was going very, very slowly and I looked ahead and I realized that the immigration officer was a rookie. Another officer was standing behind him, and every two seconds, this rookie turned around and asked the guy behind him what to do. I stood in that line for an hour and three quarters, and there were still plenty of people in front of me. I wasn't going to make the flight. And then the four other immigration stands that had been taking, up to this point, only US passports, opened up and we started to move through really fast. I thought to myself: Baruch Hashem, ישועת השם כהרף עין Hashem saves us in the twinkling of an eye. I'm going to make that flight. I cleared immigration, I ran to the scanners, put all my stuff in the trays, I ran to the gate, I got there exactly three minutes before they closed the flight. Chasdei Hashem. I reached into my pocket to pull out my phone and show the lady my boarding pass. It wasn't there. I was sure I put it in my inside jacket pocket. Maybe it's in my coat, maybe it's in my carry on. I checked that and I checked everything else three times. It wasn't there. It wasn't there. Sir, I'm sorry. We're going to have to close the flight. Are you going to board? So there I was, faced with either missing the flight or permanently losing my phone. I chose to miss the flight. All I had in my pockets were my credit cards and the phone number, scribbled on a piece of paper, of Rabbi Aharon Wasserman, the Rosh Yeshiva of Toras Chaim in Denver. And I had no phone to call him with. Ah, maybe I left it in the scanner, I thought to myself. I walked away from the gate and then a small passenger cart slowed down next to me. I said to him: Can you give me a ride back to International? Sure thing, he said. We jumped on to the cart, we zoomed off to International, and everybody there was incredibly helpful. We searched through all the trays that had gone through the scanner. Nothing. He said to me: Maybe try around the corner, sir, at Central. I walked over to Central. I'm sorry, sir. Maybe if you come back in a couple of days to the Lost & Found. A couple of days? I've got to speak in Denver tomorrow night. I walked back to International, very dejected, and then I realized, This is a Nisayon. This is a test from Hashem. This is what you’ve spent all those years learning. Hashem is testing you. This is what's supposed to be happening. You're supposed to lose your phone. There's a God who's running the world and how much do you really trust Him? One of the most difficult things about a Nisayon is to recognize that you're in a Nisayon. There's no big neon arrow that's going to come zooming down from Heaven, written on it: This is a Nisayon! Half of that Nisayon is realizing that you're in a Nisayon. And when you realize that, you're halfway or more to being Omed in that Nisayon, halfway to winning. It's so easy to get carried away in the moment by worry and stress. As I rounded the corner, one of the guys working the scanner said to me, Sir, is this your phone? They found it. I caught the next flight to Denver, a little worse for wear, with a big new insight into what a Nisayon really is.