Adapted from Startling Incidents and Experiences in the Christian Life

A Little Boy’s ABC Prayer

The following story is told of a little boy in one of the Eastern States who had been taught all his life to make his requests known to the Lord.

One day while he was walking along a roadside, the wind blew his hat over the fence into the field on the other side. The fence was too high and difficult for the little lad to climb. After a moment, he remembered what his mother had taught him, and decided that he should ask the Lord to get the hat for him.

He knelt down and bowed his head by the fence corner, and, not knowing what else to say, began praying: “A, b, c, d, e, f, g,” etc. When he had finished saying the alphabet once, he began repeating it over again.

A gentleman came by and heard him, so he came up quietly and listened. He wondered why the boy was kneeling there and solemnly saying his ABCs.

At length he said, “Boy, what are you doing?”

“Praying,” the boy replied.

“What are you praying about?”

“The wind blew my hat over this high fence into that field, and I can not climb the fence to get it. My mother taught me always to pray and ask the Lord for whatever I needed and told me that He would answer prayer.”

“But you were not praying; you were only saying your ABCs.”

“The Lord knows how to put them together to make a prayer,” the boy replied.

The gentleman was so touched at the boy’s sincerity that he climbed the fence and got the hat for the little lad, who said, “There, didn’t I tell you the Lord would answer my prayer?”