Good Christians only may answer...

[robvalue]

Prayer is such a bizarre concept. One must make a distinction between prayers which are intended to make some sort of difference, and those which aren't. Both cases are strange to me.

If you expect it to make a difference, that means you're advising God on how better to implement his plan than how he was going to do it, and that he agrees with your improvement.

If you don't expect it to make a difference, you may as well just say, "I hope this happens..." like any atheist would do. It's an attempt to make someone else, or yourself, feel better or feel cared about. Otherwise, you're saying, "Please do whatever you were going to do anyway". That's rather a pointless statement. It's doubly strange, because it means you won't actually be happy if god's plan doesn't agree with what you want to happen.

If in fact God has always had a plan and always follows it regardless of prayer, then you're just cheerleading, and anything you have to say about potential outcomes is irrelevant.