Prayers for Changed Events

There are two fundamental ways of looking at God's normal way fighting the war with 'the world.' 1) God changes events so that people are changed? or 2) God changes people so that they will change events.

Those who view the world via 1) tend to make a lot of well-intentioned prayers for changed circumstances without realizing the what those prayers are like. I will make this post and just give one example:

When you are late for work and you pray that God will help you “make it on time”, what are you actually asking? That God will cause people to pull off the road that never originally intended to leave to thin out traffic for you? That God will hack into the control lights, contrary to the laws of physics, and extend the greens for you? Shorten the road to my destination? Basically even this well intentioned prayer is asking God for an exemption from the effects your decision to leave late, and to hang the consequences on everyone else.

The nice thing about 2) approach is that we tend to focus our prayers on conforming our character to Christ: "Lord let me be patient and joyful even though I'm frustrated that I'm late."