The unexpected way prayer shows me humility

We all know that the purpose of prayer is a fulfillment of desire.  Christians believe that praying is a way of speaking to God and asking for discernment, guidance, and help on a particular situation.  One sermon had a snippet that has stuck with me regarding asking for prayer....you should ask God for everything you want, exactly what you want.  I hadn't done that.  When I used to ask God for something, I didn't want to seem greedy, so I would ask for the minimum.  Apparently, when you don't ask for exactly what you want, you are doubting that God will/could grant that request (example: during my third pregnancy, I asked for a healthy baby, regardless of gender.  After adopting this theory, however, I started asking for a perfectly healthy and gorgeous Baby Girl.  The gender was already decided at that point, but I trusted that God would grant me the desires of my heart and Presley was born).  Instead of feeling incredibly spoiled, entitled and greedy, I had an opportunity to change my attitude and exhibit faith in my Savior.  When you ask God for something that is in line with His heart, in His name, and part of His plan, He will give it to you.  He WILL give it to you.  I have countless examples of this and love to hear other experiences confirming this truth.

That being said, I now make greater efforts to ask for exactly what I want.  As I pray, however, I realize how selfish my requests are and I find myself tweaking my words into something I should change in myself.  Instead of asking for God to fix something I don't like in someone else, I ask Him to fix me into finding a solution when interacting with that someone.  Example: my evening prayers over the boys would find me asking for the boys to drop their poor attitudes and quit fighting with me and each other.  Now my prayer is asking for God to open my ears and mind to different options on how to communicate with the boys better so we all stay calm and work out our problems more effectively.  Better, right?  I'm still getting my request across, but I now have an active role in bettering the situation.

This self-reflection is a reminder in humility that I cannot change others, I can only change myself in relation to others.  Ain't prayer the coolest?  That's my deep thought for the day.