Prayer

I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately. It always seems to happen when I reach Ether in the Book of Mormon. He prays for some big things, and his prayers are answered, seemingly in the way he expected. I think about this when I read about Gideon in the Old Testament too. Judges talks about him praying for a sign, then another sign that it is the Lord's will for him to lead an army to save Israel. First the dew falls only on a fleece, and he wrings out a bowl full of water. The second night, the dew falls all around the fleece, but the fleece stays dry.

In Ether, the brother of Jared asks that their languages not be confounded at the time of the great tower-he asks this not only for his family, but also his friends. The Lord did not confound their languages.

I don't know the entire situation behind either of these stories. Probably, there are things in play that I'm completely ignorant of, yet I think about what I might do in similar situations. It seems almost presumptuous to me to ask what these men asked, and they not only asked, but had their wishes granted. I wonder as I recognize some of my shortcomings in the area of prayer how I can learn from these men, and other examples we're given in the Scriptures. While an attitude of "You'll never know unless you ask" seems a little too flippant, I think I need to approach prayer differently. Strangely (or maybe not, since it is part of a woman's nature), I am much more apt to ask for big blessings on behalf of others than I am to ask for things for myself. When I pray, maybe instead of worrying about whether what I want to ask is too much (because is anything really too much for the Lord?), I need to really consider what I want, what I think the Lord wants, and not be afraid to ask for things that may be in the plan, even if they seem presumptuous. Sometimes blessings are predicated upon our asking for them. If I'm too afraid to ask, I won't be blessed, nor will the people around me for whom I pray.