God's giving is inseparable connected with our asking. "You do not have, because you do not ask." (James 4:2 NRSV)
Many years ago, just after World War I, there was a grocer who tried to weigh a prayer. During the week before Christmas a woman came into his store and asked for food to make a Christmas dinner for her children. He asked her how much she had to spend.
She answered, "My husband was killed in the war. I have nothing to offer but a prayer.'
The grocer said gruffly, "Write it down," and went about his business. To his surprise, the woman took a slip of paper out of her purse and handed it to him. "I did that during the night while I was watching over my sick baby," she said. The grocer took the paper and callously placed it on the weight side of his old-fashioned scales.
He said, "I'll give you the weight of food equal to the weight of this prayer." To his great astonishment, when he put a loaf of bread on the other side of the scale it didn't budge. Startled, he added a brick of cheese, and then a turkey, but it still didn't move. Finally, he had loaded so much food on the scale it couldn't hold any more.
He handed the woman a bag and said, "You'll have to sack it all yourself," then turned away. It was only after the woman left, tears of joy streaming down her face, that he discovered his scale had broken at the precise moment he placed her prayer on it. For the first time, he looked down to read what the woman had written:
"Please, Lord, give us this day our daily bread." (Matthew 6: 11)
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