Praying for God's glory or praying for our needs?

In a previous post I said that one of the essential elements of prayer was a sense of our own or others' need, the 'necessity' of prayer. Yet recently I've been writing about praying in Jesus name in order to do God's will and bring him glory. Aren't these contradictory? Aren't we being selfish or at least human-centred rather than God-centred if we pray for the things we need in our own lives? If we want to glorify God and pray according to his will, shouldn't we focus our prayers on things like evangelism and mission, rather than bothering God with our anxiety over an exam, or the health of our Auntie June?

This sense that our prayers aren't acceptable unless we're constantly praying about great, "spiritual" issues can be crippling to our prayer life. It leads to all sorts of less-than-Christian attitudes to prayer. We might bring our own apparently petty needs to God and then try to parcel them up with some prayers for outreach and missions, in an effort to make them seem more acceptable. In effect we try to strike a bargain with God - if you give me what I want, I'll pray for what you want.

Or we might ignore our own needs altogether and pray only for the big issues. But that leads to self-sufficiency and pride. "Look at all those silly souls praying for their own trivial needs, while I co-operate with God in changing the world."

The problem arises from an inadequate understanding of God's rule and God's kingdom. The kingdom of God is not about ever-so-holy people doing ever-so-spiritual activities. It's about the whole of life being brought under the lordship of Christ. It's about honoring and serving God in everything we do, with our bodies, minds, words, relationships and goods. And it's about longing to see all people, all of creation doing the same.

So in fact we honour God and bring him glory when we acknowledge our needs to him. We extend his kingdom when we pray for the means to overcome sickness, pain and suffering in those around us. We serve him better when we seek his healing for our own weaknesses and failings. We demonstrate his rule in our lives when we bring our relationships to him in prayer.

If we can't acknowledge our trust in God's goodness and reliance on his power to provide for our own relatively simple needs, where will we get the faith to ask for big, world-changing things? And there's no doubt that we are told to pray for governments and leaders, for the sending out of missionaries and evangelists, for the salvation of the lost, for the spiritual growth of other Christians, for the perseverence of those facing persecution for their faith. But it's also God's will that we should pray for our daily bread.