Fortunately for me, these things do not occur regularly enough for me to consider them a habit. A do, however, habitually pray when I am confronted with difficulties in my life. These prayers differ from the ones for trivial problems like the ones listed above; those prayers are more recriminations about my own bad-behavior. The prayers when I face real difficulties in my life are real prayers. I do have a deep and abiding faith in God, and I believe that He desires to help people with their problems. When confronted with something that I cannot resolve on my own, such as a family member's illness, I call upon Him for assistance. I also have enough faith to believe that...

I do not believe that God is like a friend to whom I should stop speaking, when He does not do what I ask. Instead, I believe that God does know better than I know. Therefore, when His answers are not the ones I wanted, I begin to pray in earnest, hoping that He will reveal His will to me, and help me to understand why I must pass through such difficulties. If I have learned anything from my study of the great leaders in the Bible, it is that even those who are in God's favor face hardship, maybe even greater hardships than those who are not in His favor. Therefore, all I can do is pray to God for understanding.