Not Just For Ourselves

So often we find our prayer focused on "self-help."  We want to improve, we want our worries  to melt away; yet we continue to complain when things don't go our way;  we're tired, over-tasked...on and on..  We pray for relief for these " troubles", sometimes forgetting the millions who don't even have faith, who suffer from injustice, poverty, the hardness of other people whose self-centeredness leave a bitter taste in their mouths. Like them, have we ever thought or said, "This world would be so much better if there weren't other people in it"?  And there are the millions for whom God is either silent, or just "not there" as they plod their way lost in the pursuit of things that fail to satisfy.  It is for these for whom we should be praying not just for ourselves.
A practice that can help us pray with a broader, more inclusive vision is to welcome interruptions, which usually "bug" us, thank God for them, and turn our prayer to those mentioned above whose lives are so "bugged up" that  they don't even know they are living in one long and great interruption. They are off the track that God has intended for us. We can help them by the many prayers we offer for them during our much interrupted days, and, at some point, we can be concerned and peaceful enough to reach out to them and help them find the way out of their interrupted lives.
Bro. Rene