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Extra Twenty Percent Off

While I’m at a new outlet mall a couple years ago, I see a jacket I like.

According to the sign, the jacket is forty percent off. Directly under this sign, there’s another sign, which reads, “EXTRA 20% OFF.”

I think it’s Christmas in August!

I ask the sales associate on the floor, “So this is a total of sixty percent off, right?”

He answers, “Let me double-check. I don’t think that ‘EXTRA 20% OFF’ sign is supposed to be there. Let me check with my manager.”

Then I say, “Well, even if you do check with your manager, I could always make the case that since the sign is up, you need to honor the sign, right?”

Looking as if he’s been caught red-handed, he says, “I guess you could put up a fight. But let me check.”

After talking to his manager at the register, the sales associate tells me that the “EXTRA 20% OFF” sign shouldn’t be there and that the jacket is only forty percent off.

I tell the guy, “Thanks! I got it from here.”

I scurry over to the manager at the register and say, “Sir, do you see that sign from here that says, ‘EXTRA 20% OFF’? You’re going to give me the extra 20% off, right?”

The manager smiles and says, “Okay.”

As he rings up my jacket, I overhear the sales associate at the register next to him ask the customer next to me, “Are you in education?”

Then I say to the sales associate helping me, “Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait a minute! . . . You mean to tell me that you get an additional discount if you’re in education?”

He says, “Yeah.”

In a blink of an eye, I pull out my faculty ID.

The manager says, “If I give you the education discount, then I’ll have to start over and ring this up it all over again.”

With my eyes wide open like Bernie Mac’s, I say, “Okay!”

By the time I get all my discounts, I buy the jacket for $2.24!

Well, not quite—but I do get a great deal.

My point is this: you have not, because you ask not.

If you want to see God perform in your life, ask God!