Actually, I do understand your point. Why doesn't everybody get their prayers answered? It goes back to needing to be reconciled to God. People may want God to give them the things they want in life...safety, peace, money, friends, etc., but they aren't doing what God wants from them (reconciliation: repentance and salvation). Even for Christians, God answers prayers based on a mutually giving basis: Christians do what God wants from us and then God gives more rewards for praying....this doesn't mean "things" it's more like divine interventions....doing things so that the believer notices His working in their life and hearing their prayers. I'm not making this up, this is what happens with Christians that I know too.
Overnight said, "He wants us to ask. So we ask. He does not answer our prayers in many circumstances. So what is the point of asking if He is going to be a selective God? What, God has firesales on certain kinds of prayers but not on others?"
It's really about the relationship. If I "need" something, God may choose to let me go through a difficulty and not supply the need, yet at the same time, bring along Bible verses across my path that answer my prayers to know Him better and might do it in such a way that I KNOW it was definitely not a coincidence and this is actually more exciting that getting "something." Material possessions don't compare with knowing that God has heard what you said and actually cares about you.
I've heard many different pastors in many different churches finish their sermon and when the last song in the service is about to be sung, the director says He didn't know what the Pastor was going to be preaching on, but the song fit closely with the subject of the message and thanks God for His intervention in matching the song to the message.
On a similar note: A pastor I know really well told me about a message he preached one service and afterward three different people came up to him, separately, and each asked if he had specifically directed part of his sermon to address them personally. He hadn't, and he assured each of them of that. The funny thing was, the parts of the message that each one felt like had been intended for them, was different for each person! The reason this pastor mentioned it was because the topic of the conversation was how God works in people's hearts when they come under the hearing of the Word of God. I wasn't there for the sermon, but I have heard that preacher's sermons enough to know that he sticks with just the Bible...doesn't try to apply it or do anything to make someone feel he is directing his message to them.
Not sure that made the point.
The point is, God is real. He works in my life and in lives of many others.
That's all I know to say.
