Need To Be Specific In Prayer

All my life, people have been telling me to pray.  It is good to pray.  So I prayed and prayed...  and sometimes I just tossed off a prayer, thinking that God would know and would understand what to fix in my life.  I never thought that I needed to be specific.

Then one day, I opened the Pieta (the one with a brown cover) and found this.

A Bernadine Sister was shown in spirit the vast desolation caused by the devil throughout the world. At the same time, she heard the Blessed Virgin telling her that it was true, Hell had been let loose upon earth.  The Blessed Virgin said the time had come to pray to her as Queen of the Angels and to seek the assistance of the Heavenly Legions to fight against these deadly foes of God and of men.

"But, my good Mother," the Nun asked,"you who are so kind, could you not send them without our asking?"

"No, " Our Lady said, "because prayer is one of the conditions required by God Himself for obtaining favours."

I was aghast ... all this while I had been praying in general terms and had never been specific.  

I suddenly remembered a story in an volume of 'Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories' where a grandmother scolded a child for asking for a full loaf of bread.  The old woman said she shouldn't be so greedy and should only ask for half a loaf.  But the little girl argued that she DIDN'T want half a loaf because it wasn't enough.  She wanted one whole loaf so that everyone in the house would have enough.  True enough, her prayers were answered when a neighbour delivered a whole loaf of bread in the middle of a blizzard.

I remembered how confused I felt then... I had always assumed that in praying, I was not to ask for too much and show my greed... but God would understand and would give me what I deserved.  So if I wanted straight A's, I was not to ask for the string of A's but just ask for a good result.  Then God would give me what I was supposed to get.  But there were many times I wanted to be specific but didn't dare.  I was always asking for 'half a loaf' when I wanted a full loaf.

The ONE thing that struck me about this was how God requires prayers from us.  Too many people blame God for the calamities and troubles that befall them but they never think about whether or not they prayed to God to protect and shield them.  What is the point in praying AFTER the misfortune?  A bit too late, don't you think?