Cat has said it all. Much of prayer is about having a relationship with God. You know that God probably empathizes with your petitionary prayers, but he also maintains his respect for the basic freedom that has been woven into this cosmos to make it a created milieu that supports our own freedom.

If you want to see a prayer answered easily, pray that someone whom you know has the holy spirit in their heart will relent in some disagreement they have with you. That's providing that there is some justice to your position in the matter. God doesn't have to abrogate the freedom of anyone or anything to have a little chat with another one of his devoted children.

But I do have to testify that some shocking things have happened in my life in response to prayers. I have enough background in elementary statistics that I'm pretty sure I can distinguish between coincidence and miracle - very odd convergences can happen through chance alone, but some things just go beyond. I won't go into detail because other people's confidentiality is involved.

God is listening. God is talking.