Prayer doesn't force God to act, as if He's a genie sitting passively in His bottle, and our prayer is like rubbing the lamp. But it isn't true, either, that prayer is just mental self-adjustment. James wrote that Elijah prayed, and God stopped the rain for 3 1/2 years; then Elijah prayed again, and God made it rain (James 5). Based on His promise, God does things when we pray that He refrains from doing when we don't pray. We shouldn't shrink prayer down to a form of reflexive mental therapy. That's a liberal's view of prayer -- it's purely psychological in its effect, that nothing out in the objective reality happens because of prayer, prayer just makes you feel better, or helps you be a more-moral person. The Bible says if you pray, in faith, and in harmony with God's revealed (scriptural) will, God makes stuff happen.
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