Well said.

As a tangential thought, I remember a line from Shadowlands, the movie about C.S.Lewis dealing with his wife’s cancer and eventual death. He said that He did not think that God answered prayers for healing. Someone asked him, “Then why do you spend so much time in prayer in the chapel?” His response was, “I can’t help it.” I don’t know if C.S. Lewis actually said those words or whether it was artistic license on the part of the script writer.

But recently I have certainly prayed for my wife and my daughter as they have had serious illnesses and hospitalization.

Our church has a reputation as a “praying church,” to the degree that people outside the church call in and ask to be put on our prayer list. We have seen many positive outcomes and s ome negative outcomes. Our pastor’s wife has recurrent cancer and the doctor’s have given her a 3% chance of eventually being permanently cancer free. We prayed that the cancer would not come back, but it did. But no-one lost their faith. As you pointed out, we are not in a transactional relationship with God. There is nothing we can do that benefits Him. We rely on His grace.

He does tell us to pray and to come to Him as little children to their father. We ask, we petition, we pray. But as a child asks, he or she also trust their father to do what is best. I trust Him. When He does things or allows things that I don’t like, I trust that it is part of a plan for the greater good, and I keep asking for what I want and trust that the Spirit will intervene and interpret my prayers with “groanings too deep for words.” I trust that He will work in my life so that I mature in Christlikeness and pray better prayers.