Welcome to the Daily Chizuk (encouragement). The Zohar writes in Parashat Vayikra that a person should ask Hashem for everything they need at all times. A prayer for a small need is so beautiful because it shows you believe Hashem is involved in every aspect of your life, even the everyday, mundane hustle and bustle. If you're in a rush and someone's blocking your car and you make a short prayer: “Please, Hashem, help me leave right now.” That means you believe Hashem could put a thought in that person's mind to run out and move their car.
This makes the tefillah (prayer) so much more powerful. Someone told me his wife had just given birth a couple of weeks ago, and she had a roommate who wasn't that quiet, and she was up almost the whole night. The roommate was discharged the next morning, but an hour later, the nurse came in to fix up the bed. She said, “Another patient is coming in now.” The woman, who desperately wanted some peace and quiet, made a short tefillah and said, “Hashem, there are a lot of rooms on this floor. Can you please put the new patient in a different room so I could get some rest?” Twenty minutes later, the nurse was back in the room, and the lady asked, “What happened to the other patient?” The nurse replied, “I don't know why, but they told me they were switching her to another room, so I set her up somewhere else.” You could pray these little tefillahs anytime you want. Our great rabbis would make short tefillahs many times a day, and therefore they were connected to Hashem all day long.
The pasuk (verse) says in this week's parasha, “Vayar adonav ki Hashem ito.” Potiphar, Yosef's master, saw that Hashem was with Yosef, and the Midrash Tanchuma asks, “How did he know? Was this Egyptian able to see the Shechinah (Divine Presence)?” The Midrash says, “When Yosef would enter to serve Potiphar, he used to make a short tefillah: ‘Please, Hashem, let me find favor in my master's eyes.’” Potiphar would ask him, “What are you mumbling?” And Yosef would tell him, “I'm asking Hashem for help.” The next words in the Torah are, “Ve'chol asher hu oseh, Hashem matzliach beyado.” Everything that Yosef did, Hashem gave him success with.
This is the key to success: ask Hashem for help first. Some people are embarrassed to ask the King for every little thing. But we have to know: Hashem is not only Malkeinu (our King); He's Avinu, our loving father, because Hashem loves every one of us like an only child. If you need something and you know your father has millions of them, you wouldn't hold back from asking. You don't say, “Maybe I don't deserve it,” or, “Maybe he'll say no.” He's your father. Hashem has millions of everything. He loves you more than your father, and he gets pleasure when you ask for his help. It's easy for him to help, and he can turn any situation around for you in an instant.
Somebody told me he needed money, and he prayed to Hashem, “Please let this man who owes me money just pay me already.” The next day, a different man handed him a check. It was someone else who owed him money from way before that, that he had already given up on. We don't know what our tefillah could do. We need Hashem for everything. Let us accustom ourselves to talk to Him all the time and, like the Zohar says, constantly ask Him for everything we need. Have a great day.