The Power of Prayer

As someone who is new to God and new to prayer, I realized today that one of the reasons I struggle with prayer is because it seemed so needy.  There are people suffering all over the world, why should I ask God to help me?  Today I realized that in addition to asking God to help us in our lives, we can also ask God to give us the strength and guidance to do his work.  We can ask God to help others.  In addition, praying helps us build a relationship with God. Though I have not been praying for very long, I have found that when I am praying, ideas come to me, both about things I need to pray for and also what feels like guidance from God.  My concern about asking for God's help is an artifact of my previous misconceptions about God.  God is there for all of us.  There is nothing wrong with asking for God's help. There is nothing wrong with being needy.  God may not answer our prayers the way we expect, but praying opens us up to God's love and allows us to find our footing.  Sometimes all we need is to reach out to God and be vulnerable so that we can feel his love.