We all see what we're lookin for in the world. If you put money on the lottery and prayed to win and then won even ten pounds, you would see your prayer as having been worthwhile. This is not because you won. You would think that winning was the reason you felt that your prayers were answered. In fact the reason you would have seen it as vindication of your belief in prayer is because you believed in prayer enough to pray in the first place and you have since been looking for any available opportunity to prove that you were right. The outcome of the lottery would have been the result of pseudo random chaos either way. Your belief in prayer is purely a result of human superstition.

This is true of many things outside of prayer. We take our hopes and expectations with us into various situations. The fact that those expectations are met or challenged affects our view of the world, but that view is as much a product of those expectations as it is reality.

So be careful what you wish for. It may condition you.