There are the circumstances we cannot explain, but those come from the people being prayed for mostly. Fear is opposite of faith, so Jesus said ‘be it according to your faith’. Receiving the prayer may be important or being positive instead of negative. It’s easy to say ‘we are dead’ but harder to say ‘greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world’, and I’m getting out of this.
For example: The way the 9/11 plane went down in Pa by the heroism of those who said ‘let’s roll’.
Yet it took JOB in the Bible a long time to understand his terrible downfall was the result of ‘the thing I feared the most came up on me’....
Yes, we never understand why some prayers are answered miraculously or why some seem to not penetrate the wall....I think there are factors we cannot see that determine victory or defeat.
I understand it can be discouraging when prayers aren’t answered. Some can’t receive prayer if they are non believers,as well. WE can’t explain many things, but it doesn’t discount the miracles that do happen, imho.
I used to think my prayer wasn’t answered if the person died, however when it came to suffering from cancer, disease, pain, etc I finally realized the greatest healing for a Christian was death...release to a new glorified body from the one that was in torment.
Then it becomes perspective of reality to me....the patient’s reality.
Don’t get me wrong.. it’s not that I don’t value prayer. But God has His plan in place and I don’t see Him making changes to it. Prayer is a great tool for communicating our hopes and desires to Him, and my faith centers on His providing spiritual comfort as the dark clouds of evil gather.