I think this sums up religious belief of all sorts and shades:
God does not answer prayers that don't need answering.
Figuring out what God wants is hard work! Very very hard.
[…] you have to humble yourself to what really needs to be done.
Then you have to completely abandon your efforts to expect God to do what you ask.
After you completely give up your ego involvement and surrender, only at that instant does He take care of the situation.
Imagine a bus route that winds up and down streets through a town.
You choose a spot at random and wait for a bus. As you wait, you wish and wish for a bus to arrive. No bus comes.
You move to another street. As you wait, you wish and wish for a bus to arrive. A bus comes but stops 150 yards from you and you miss it.
No bus, and the bus stopping far away from you, happens many times. You humble yourself and keep finding new streets and places and you keep wishing and wishing.
You move to another street. As you wait, you wish and wish for a bus to arrive. A bus arrives exactly where you are waiting and you can get on. Surely the bus has heard you!
No, it hasn't... you are having no effect on it by standing there wishing for it to arrive. The bus is going to follow its route come what may.
When it does arrive, you think you have had an effect on the bus and its route; but you haven’t.
The bus on its route is just the same as the future, sometimes, on very rare occasions, the future will turn out precisely as you want it; sometimes it will be pretty close to what you want but still not what you want, but most of the time it is nothing like the future you wished for.
The point is that all gods operate like this – they are the mysterious bus route. And all religions tell you that they know where the bus stops are, but they have no more idea than you; and you and they are wrong far more times than you are right.
Since mankind started thinking, he has tried to work out the bus route. It is only since the Renaissance that he has found that there are patterns to the world (the bus routes): these are defined by real knowledge of the way the world works. It has nothing to do with imaginary beings in the sky. We now know many of the bus routes and we know that none of them are run by gods.
You can continue to stand in a random place in the street and pray for a bus to arrive, or you can use the knowledge that mankind has gained over the years and (i) find the right place to stand or (ii) work out the chances of a bus arriving where you are standing.