Does Praying Really Work?

Here is the pondering.  If the Lord has his will and he is in deed greater in every sense then I, what power would prayer have if His "will is done"?
This is a false premise.  The Lord has his will, but he cannot force that will on us.  We can receive consequences according to the laws of his commandments, we can have others' consequences negatively impact us.... But to suppose that his will will always occur removes a few truths found in the scriptures.
 In all this meditation the goal is to answer once again why pray?  Why ask for that which may already be in store according to His will?  And for those who are struggling in their faith due to their will and their prayers not being answered what good is prayer then?
At the basic foundation of prayer at all is a hope in a desired outcome.  There would be no reason to make this effort if it were not so.  In deed for those who don't spend time on the word FAITH due to the complexity, the simplicity of faith is prayer.  If I did not have faith that someone would pick up on the other end of a phone call then I would not dial at all.  In fact when making a call there is an answer on some occasions and others there is not; according to many factors.  We could take the analogy a bit further for the "barely believer in prayer" and say that if a family member or friend did not pick up the phone on every call, wouldn't we be unfair to impose our mind reading on the family or friend.  Mind reading that they were too busy for us, that they looked down at the phone and decided to not pick up because it was us.  That they were angry for our last offense and thought that not answering was a way to get back at us.  Although many of us, myself included could have these same thoughts of self-pity, fear and insecurity about a loved one, we still would see the mind reading in another person as self destructive, painful, and unhealthy.  Here is the deal.  The faith we have in the other person's receiving the call should not be conditional.  If we are healthy we would suspend judgment until we knew why they did not pick up.  If we have trust and faith in them and had LOVE for them we would think highly of their best, not their worst as would be the case of the negative mind reading scenario.
The phone call analogy- as you may have connected already is a beginning comparison to the two way call of our reaching out to our Heavenly Father through prayer.  When we ask and do not receive we might have a moment of disbelief, of abandonment, of sense of disappointment.
To me a powerful Zen Koan tells it all:  A farmer worked hard with his oldest son to prepare the earth for the upcoming planting season.  While they were pulling a stump the chain whipped around and shattered the son's leg.  The village people noticed the elderly farmer's hard times as he would have to finish the hard labor himself.  They would offer their pity in words of: "You are so unfortunate" "You will age with all the hard work you have to do now alone" "You are in such a difficult time" to which the farmer simply replied "Maybe So, Maybe Not".  A few days later the Empirical Army rode through town looking for all able young men to force into war.  The Farmer's oldest was injured and passed over.  Many of the same village people sent their sons to war and many did not return.  The village people turned to the elderly farmer and exclaimed how lucky he was to have a son still living.  He simply replied "Maybe So, Maybe not".
The point to all this is that we do have a say in our loosening on earth from the power's of heaven.  We have more power than we can even imagine.  The thing that I don't see very often is the suspending of judgment that we see here in this Farmer.  Maybe So Maybe Not.  At the heart of this wise farmer is humility. 
Now shifting gears from those who would take offense for calls not picked up by loved ones, or in the heart of the matter prayers that don't end up precisely the way of our desire.  Many realize that to pray is to understand the will of God and to have ones heart softened to His will.
Shifting away from that to the times that we might wonder why pray if it will be his way.
Here is the belief in the beginning that I have to tie in.  The start of the race of man.  Not of intelligence (all living things have a form of intelligence) but the start of Man... ADAM and our mother of all living EVE.  We are told that "Man shall have dominion over all the earth".  This is literal and spiritual in it's meaning.  As a newly discovered pondering and study, we invite the hand of the Lord and we even invite the evils of Satan.  We have dominion.  What power does this infer in Prayer, in it's many forms? (subject for another time).  Let's roll back to the meridian of time.  Jesus Christ the Son of God prayed for in the garden of Gethsemane  asked for the "bitter cup" (him taking the sins of the world on to become each of our own personal Jesus) to be removed from him.  We see the divide of his will and the purpose of his life.  Was his will granted... No, and here we return to an earlier point with this most powerful example of all time.  His will was not granted and his humble submission to the will of the Father and to his purpose in life caused that he suffered and bled from every pore of his skin as he took the sins of all those created.   The miracle of this is too big to comprehend.  Let's go through this interesting scenario though.  Why would the Jesus Christ ask, if he knew that it was the will of Heavenly Father that he would be the sacrifice?  This is proof positive that there is always an opportunity to ask for that which we desire having faith and humility all at once.  This may appear contradictory as the will of the Son did not occur, but in fact the opposite is true.  Why would the Son, who has the best closest relationship to the Father then any living even attempt, if he did not know that in fact we do have some power of will to loose on earth and in heaven or bind on earth as in heaven.
Many times I have pondered on: praying for others.  Many times I have wondered, if they all receive the help whether I pray or not what is the use?   This shows a lack of faith and connectedness.  Here is what I have experienced... I have noticed that to pray for another at a minimum gets me outside of me.  It is a fact that a man cannot serve two masters, I cannot have a pity party and depress (verb) if I am at the same time showing hope and desire for peace and healing for another.  And what of those we pray for who pass on?  Were they not comforted as they felt of our prayers.  No scientist that I know of has found a tool for measuring this comfort, but I can say with confidence that prayer comforts those who are distant.  There is also a deepening of connection that comes of this by the pray-er.  This I will attempt to prove at a minimum.
There is a  reality of the current times that is- busyness.  Constant chatter, constant hustle, and chaos.  There may not be time that we even take to pause and ponder.  There is constant messages, constant conversation.  This is why I would desire to contrast as an argument the connectedness that occurs when one prays for someone else.  When we pause our self to pray, we are using the physical body to slow down, we are using the mind to focus and I will argue that point that we are using the Soul to communicate:  Within every culture of spirituality there is a concept of connectivity.  I bring this point to prevent a debate on the matter that would remove the major point.  Connective states don't occur through the physical that would look weird to be fused together.  It cannot occur on the thinking realm- it cannot, no matter how hard someone who believes our puny thoughts are this grand. And the proof here is how many unique thoughts 2 people in the same room can have running on let alone the infinite amount of beings.  The connectivity must exist on the spiritual level- or be a connectivity of the Soul.
Here is the power of prayer.  We slow down.  We force our physical body into different positions depending on the way one was taught to facilitate this slowing down physically, we slow the thoughts to one path, and we pour out both self-centered and other centered gratitude, desires, hopes, and petitions.  On what level do we connect with those we pray for?  Peace and comfort, strength and hope, this all connects us to those we pray for no matter how distant, and we are both edified or enriched.  The receiving side might be easy to explain away by scientists.  Interestingly enough, there is no scientists that can debate that prayer for another does not cause peace and strength for the giver.  The end result... Everything from miracles to at the very least compassion.  Compassion- to connect with another and desire to uplift and bear up their burden (my own definition).  With this argument I make here, I will make a short hop, not even a leap... It is impossible to know the Son of God without praying for others.  Even serving others leaves a piece of the puzzle out.  Serving without prayer, it could be argued, edifies or uplifts only the physical needs and puts the mind at ease of the receiver.  Service with-prayers causing an uplifting that is a complete gift.
Prayer is work of the soul that works.

J. Carl Andrus