Every now and again one of my kids throws a fit. I know, I expected them to be perfect little saints all the time as well. Turns out they are normal kids, kind of a relief actually. 

The other night my son was in bed but kept calling and calling and calling for us. I pulled the short straw and went up to his room. 

When I asked him what we wanted, his huge, overwhelming demand was that I take is water bottle and put it on his night stand. He could have asked for the moon and I would have tried to get it for him. His ask was small in comparison.

In the spiritual life, I think we often ask too small for God. We think we should limit what we ask for in prayer because God will be more likely to answer our prayer. Or we don’t want to seem selfish or demanding so we go small. It could also be that we don’t want to be disappointed, so we only make little prayers. 

In the gospel this Sunday, The crowds ask for more bread. They want to be fed like they were when Jesus multiplied the loaves. The crowds want physical sustenance. They are asking small. 

Meanwhile Jesus is offering the bread of heaven. He is offering them something that will keep them fed forever. Jesus is offering them the Bread of Life. Jesus is offering himself. 

Too often I think we ask small. In our prayer we ask for just the worldly things when God is offering us something much, much larger. We ask for comfort while God offers us greatness. We ask for success and God offers us salvation. We ask for the world while God is offering us Heaven.

There is nothing wrong for praying for our daily bread, Jesus instructs us to pray those exact words. However, praying for our daily bread must not deter us from asking for the big stuff. When we pray, we can and should ask for a God sized miracle or request. The prayer life of the disciple of Jesus is one in which our prayers match our faith. Ask big. 

LIVE IT: Decide on something really, really big – a God sized ask – and then pray that prayer every day for a week. Go Big. Ask God something that is crazy and impossible and then see what happens.