There is a story told of a man who tried to weigh a prayer. This man owned a grocery shop at a time when money was scarce and food was being rationed. The year was 1918, and the First World War had just ended. Business was not very brisk during the week before Christmas, and the shopkeeper was glad to see a few customers eager to purchase the essentials needed for their families.
One day a tired looking woman came into the shop and asked the owner for enough food to make a Christmas dinner for herself and her children. The grocer asked how much money she could spend. Tearfully, the woman replied, “My husband joined the army and fought bravely. Unfortunately, he did not return home. You see, he was killed in the War, so my children and I have to fend for ourselves. Right now I don’t have any money. In fact I have nothing to offer but a little prayer.”
The shopkeeper was not a sentimental man, and he had no interest in religion. Looking sarcastically at the poor woman, he said, half mockingly, “Write your prayer on a piece of paper, and I will weigh it.” To the grocer’s surprise, the woman took a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. She said, “I wrote my prayer during the night while I was watching over my sick baby.”
The grocer took the piece of paper from her. The other customers in the shop heard what he said to the woman, and were watching very closely as he placed the unread prayer on the weight side of the old-fashioned scales. He then began to pile food on the other side. However, to his amazement, the scales would not go down. The grocer became angry and flustered and finally said to the woman. “Well, that’s all the scales will hold. Here’s a bag. You will have to pack the groceries yourself. I am too busy.” With trembling hands the woman filled the bag. Then, with tears in her eyes, she expressed her gratitude to the grocer. Now her poor hungry children were sure of a Christmas dinner.
When the last of the customers had left, and he was alone in the shop, the grocer examined the scales. Yes, they were broken. But they had become broken just in time for God to answer the prayer of the poor woman. As the years passed, the grocer often wondered about this amazing incident. He couldn’t figure out how the woman had come into his shop at just the right time. And why had she already written the prayer on a piece of paper the night before? Why did he get so confused that he did not examine the weighing scales? He had never seen the woman before that day she entered his shop, and he never saw her again. But he never forgot her. In fact, he remembered her more than any of his customers. He often thought about the weight of the woman’s prayer. Her prayer to God consisted of just seven words: “give us this day our daily bread”. The prayer was short, simple and sincere, but it came from a heart of faith.
In the Scriptures we find a number of prayers that are short, simple and sincere. These prayers carried a lot of weight, because they were, in fact, cries from the heart. The following is one such prayer, and consists of just seven words, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’ (Luke 18:13). This was the prayer of a publican, (tax collector) who knew that God was the only one who could meet him at the point of his need. In his prayer he addressed God, he acknowledged his sinful condition and appealed for mercy.