When it comes to praying, we (You & ME) need to get away from laundry lists of asking God to DO things for us right off the bat. When prayer is examined in Scripture there is a decided element of praise and worship and glorifying His holy name. Consider the following… where saints prayed WITHOUT asking anything for themselves.
Jeremiah was arrested… an army was invading… he could possibly be killed… and then he prayed Jer 32:17-25.
Hannah left her small child at a “seminary” so that he could become a minister of sorts, and so she prayed 1 Sam 2:1-10.
Jonah was in a fish, with not possible hope from his perspective that he would live. And so he prayed as found in Jonah 2:1-9.
Daniel was reading Jeremiah during the Babylonian exile, so he prayed Dan 9:3-15.
Habakkuk was about to be killed by an invading army, yet his pray was decidedly worshipful as found in Hab 3:16-19.
Mary had been told she would have a child… the Messiah… and so she prayed this in Lk 1:46-55.
We need to pray in a manner that honors God FIRST. Then… after a good time of praise and worship, THEN we can make a request or two. As Paul wrote, so should our attitude be in prayer… Phil 3:7-11…
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things & count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 & be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, & may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.