Once you start, there’s no problem in thinking of things to ask the Lord for. Rather, our effort has to be to control our personal prayers so that they don’t consist only of petitions, “Give me this, give me that.”

We shouldn’t approach God as the order-supplier for our material desires. In this connection, Srila Prabhupada once said that we should pray to the Lord, “Please give me the strength to serve you.” Any other prayer and you won’t be happy.

Since we are so dependent and want to be honest with the Lord, we should give time in prayer to express our needs, but we should purify them. For example,”My dear Lord, I don’t want to be so envious of other devotees but it keeps coming. Please help me. Please protect my vows. Please, i want to be a devotee. Let me be a devotee. I’m helpless without you.” Those who are not inclined to prayer sometimes remark that since GOD already knows everything about us, why bother to tell him? Although He knows, He is pleased if we use our free will to spend time with Him, to be affectionate with Him, and to pray to Him to increase our desires for loving service.

Krishna wants us to be happy in a loving relationship with Him, and that can only take place if we use our will to approach Him-which includes conversing with Him. Prabhupada said,”Then what will you do there? He will talk or not talk?”