Nothing like being told, "You better pray or else!" As though a theological gun was held to our heads. "You better love me!" God screams in this 'commands'. What kind of eternal, immutable, all powerful being needs human affection/worship? Is God the quintessential narcissist? (I say that only to illustrate the difficulty of wrapping our minds around answers or no answers to prayer). Most of the examples listed from the Bible involved direct, visible action from God. I doubt many of us can look at our lives and say, "Yup, God directly intervened here in my life at point A, B, C, and so on." Most of us misinterpret answers, especially if it's close to what we wanted or thought would happen. I personally can attest that after 30 years, God has never answered a prayer for anything for myself.

That being said, at some point, I can't help but wonder if prayer and getting a reply isn't similar to playing a lottery (which I don't recommend...a scam if ever there was one). You wake up each day and pray (or think of it like buying another faith ticket with random numbers), and the day closes out with nothing to show for it. But you keep buying those tickets, slowly going 'faith' broke through the years. At some point you have to take a logical (if possible) assessment of what's going on and realize that God really doesn't answer, if it all, hardly ever. And all the people in the bible who did get answers...news flash, most of the time it was His chosen people whom He obligated Himself to answer under the Torah covenant. He contractually obligated Himself to help them. I am not quite sure it works that way anymore. But, I could be wrong. Interesting take you have here.