Too many pray to God as a child writes to Santa Claus, “God, I want this and gimme that and…oh yeah…thanks.” It is the human predicament that we are so me-oriented that we cannot see beyond ourselves, not even for a moment. That’s why appreciate the following words from Martin Lloyd-Jones that I found from the Edwards Blog:

Take any of the great prayers that are recorded in the Old Testament or the New, and none of them is what we might call this business-like prayer which simply makes a petition known to God and then ends. Every prayer recorded in the Bible starts with invocation. It does not matter how desperate the circumstance; it does not matter what the particular quandary might be in which those who pray find themselves. Invariably, they start with this worship, this adoration, this invocation.

We have a great and wonderful example of this in the ninth chapter of Daniel. There the prophet, in terrible perplexity, prays to God. But he does not start immediately with his petition. He starts by praising God. A perplexed Jeremiah does the same thing; confronted by the demand that he should buy a plot of land in a seemingly doomed country, Jeremiah could not understand it. It seemed all wrong to him. But he does not rush in to the presence of God for this one matter; he starts by worshipping God. And so you will find in all the recorded prayers. Indeed, you even get it in the great High Priestly Prayer of our Lord Himself which is recorded in John 17. You remember also how Paul put it in writing to the Philippians. He says “In nothing be anxious but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, the your requests be made known to God.” That is the order; we must always start with invocation before we even begin to think about petition. And here it is once and forever put to us so perfectly in this model prayer. Jesus said when you pray, you reflect on the fact that you are coming to the Father. And what does that imply? That true prayer has a God-centered focus. It implies that we must come to God recognizing that we owe everything to Him, that He is our Father, and “He is the Father of lights, and every good and perfect gift comes from the Father.”