Ever wonder why we don’t always get what we pray for?  It could be because we’re asking for the wrong things.

Time for another Spiritual Sunday post! Again coming at you on a Wednesday.  Spiritual Sunday does what it wants.

I wrote an article for LDS.org that went live last week.  It was all pretty exciting stuff- I’ve never had something I’ve written reach so many people (55,000 likes so far on the Church’s Facebook page- crazy!).  If I had to have one thing I write be so far spread, I’m glad it was about something as powerful and uplifting as prayer.

Here’s a snippet of the article, thanks everyone who has supported and shared it so far!  I was truly touched!

It’s 4:30 a.m. and my two-month-old son is up again—for the fourth time tonight. “God, please help him to go back to sleep,” I silently beg in my head.

Nope. He’s still awake.

I pick him up, feed him, and put him back down. “God, please help him to sleep in!”

Nope. He doesn’t sleep in and wakes up an hour later.

Now repeat this scene for two more months.

I think when my third child was born, a good 90 percent of my prayers revolved solely around our collective sleep patterns. However, these prayers never seemed to be answered—at least not in the time frame I was hoping for.

This did not cause me to lose my faith in prayer or the power of prayer, but it did cause me to reflect on how I could improve my prayers to ask for things that God is more able to answer.

The Bible Dictionary says: “We pray in Christ’s name when our mind is the mind of Christ, and our wishes the wishes of Christ—when His words abide in us (John 15:7). We then ask for things it is possible for God to grant. Many prayers remain unanswered because they are not in Christ’s name at all; they in no way represent His mind.”

What are those things it is possible for God to grant? How could I make sure my wishes are the wishes of Christ?

To figure this out, I drew a little diagram: my desires on the left, God’s on the right, and things we both want in the middle.

Read the rest here.