Prayer changes things. This is my heart-felt belief, even though there is no rational explanation for it. This belief always creates a conflict for me, because another of my beliefs is that all spiritual Truth is in accord with natural and ordinary principles and occurrences. But prayer changes things. In my early years some fervent and earnest prayers seemed to go cruelly unanswered; I stopped believing in a God who did things. But spiritual longing persisted, and the result for me was the need to create for myself a vision of a God on whom I could always rely, a God who lives within all that happens but does not make it happen or prevent it. This way my God cannot be blamed for misfortune or cruelty. My God lives within the everyday existence and ordinariness of the world. He is not a force so much as a presence. This is what I believe. Nevertheless, prayer changes things. Perhaps it does so simply by changing me.
Nick Hilton - Reflections 