Pray. . . a LOT

Recently, I've gotten tangential information about a sick child. My reading tells me that all of us need to pray for this little kid and pray a LOT. Get others to pray if you can.

Now, you can't go after someone who is trying to do good in this way and I never would. I can't help thinking of a couple of things to myself though (and gauging by comments, writing here is the SAME as thinking to myself :)). First off, if praying for a sick little kid could help it seems mean that you have to pray 'enough'. Are we to imagine a fatherly figure with the big white beard (was God ever young?) listening and counting and knowing of this little kid's suffering (God knows all) and then. . ."Nope, not enough prayers and several people didn't really pray hard enough. NO SOUP FOR YOU. NEXT!"

Is that the God people are praying to? I guess it is. Is there some sort of innate desire to be subservient to a guy with a big white beard (without being an elf) that makes us ok with just not praying enough or hard enough? That way it's our fault and not God's? This is some pretty twisted logic but of course it's not logic at all.

And of course there are the numerous tests that have shown that praying has no effect for the sick and may even have a negative effect if they know you're praying for them.

So. . . why do we keep behaving so strangely?