A friend was speaking to an old African chap recently, a church leader, about his prayer life. The man said he prayed for his church, his leaders, us in the UK, his family, himself: in that order. After adoring God, of course.

Another African, Archbishop John Sentamu, prays in a similar way, praising and thanking God and putting himself last on the list. I heard him say that to the nation on Chris Evans’s radio show not long back.

How wonderful! How self forgetful! How unlike me!

Sadly, I’m often top of my prayer shopping list. Today I realised that I was moping through another me-centred set of prayer issues and gave myself a bit of a shake, asked God to centre me much more on him.

‘Your will be done’. Years ago, before I was a Christian, I prayed on bended knee to a God I mocked, slighted and scarcely believed in – to get me into Cambridge University. I wanted to be with my girlfriend (who went there), I wanted to be successful and to be seen to be doing well. That was one prayer in a long list of self centred prayers which I am glad, with hindsight, that God did not answer. I guess He knows we will be a lot better off if we ditch our sappy, self orientated plans for our best benefit and get into His perfect will for our lives.

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