Well Said: Praying for Ourselves

I have continued listening to The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. This is a point that gets brought up often in prayer requests ... with the person apologizing because they are asking for prayers for themselves. I've never understood that reluctance. Neither, I found, did Thomas Merton and he puts it very well.

After all, God does not care if our prayers are [self-]interested. He wants them to be. Ask and you shall receive. It is a kind of pride to insist that our prayers should never be petitions for our own needs: for this is a subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God — acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him and dependent, by His will, on material things too.

This is not to say that we request and then sit back waiting for something to drop into our laps. We go on and do our best, but the prayers go with us. As does God.