An excellent question, and I suppose if you get 10 responses you will get 10 different takes on an answer.

Here is mine…
This business of seeking God is an inside job. And when I say that I mean an inside job alone. I have my doubts that prayers to steer hurricanes somewhere other than where they are going really works. I am not sure that even the most heartfelt and unselfish prayer to fix someone else we love has any real effect on the person prayed for.
In my opinion, God does not live between the man pointing a gun and his victim, I feel that God lives between the thought to commit a hateful act and the action of committing that act.

The Big Book suggests that we pray only for the knowledge of what God’s will is for us, and the power to carry it out. Sounds like a straight up inside job to me.

When I am working with a guy and he has an issue with someone else, I suggest that he pray that all the things he might want in his life come to the person he is having a hard time with. And not just once, but every day for a month! I tell my man that I have no idea if his prayers will help the other guy, and I don’t much care either, but I have no doubt it will help him.

I leave the larger questions to greater minds. This world is a hard place, and it is full of inequity. But it is also full of the milk of human kindness. Perhaps the balance between the two is as it should be. I don’t know. But then again, I’m just workin’ on my side of the street.

Always your friend on the road to the good stuff,
Richard