God, thank you for yet another day. Thank you for how you bless and love ME, thank you for MY family and friends. Please be with ME today, lead ME, guide ME and give ME strength. I pray for MY family and friends, please bless them and may they love You. (Because that would make MY life easier) God, please provide for MY every need and protect ME from any and all evil. Thank you Jesus, I love You. Amen.
This is more or less how my everyday prayers sound. Notice all the I, ME and MY's? When was the last time you really thought about your prayers? Or has it become such a ritual that you just say the words? It's almost like the
"Hallo, how are you?"
"Good and you?"
"Good, good thank you!" conversation.
Have you noticed how confused and anxious people sound when you answer differently to any of the above questions? It's what we say and how we say it, it's a ritual and it reminds me of our prayers!
I was confronted with this and challenged in a great way during our time at the orphanages in India. Those kids pray three times a day and not once do they use the words "I, me or my". They devote their prayer time to others, they pray for you and me and every other child in the world. They praise God and memorise scripture, they teach each other to trust in the Lord and rejoice in Him only.
I was challenged to pray for the children rather than myself. I was faced with the reality that each of these kids have to endure more than me on a daily basis! They have less but still they are more content. They're stuck in those circumstances forever - I was there for 2 weeks. They are happy, I some days felt like praying for joy.
I want to challenge each and everyone of you: Let's pray for each other rather than ourselves. Think about it in this way, if we start praying for each other, with unselfish motives, more people will be praying for you than before when we were all only praying for ourselves!