Expectations of prayer

Our Gospel Doctrine teacher just asked,"What should our expectations for prayer be?"
What an interesting question. And there were interesting responses. Many focused on how we should bring our own efforts to the table in order to bring to pass what we are praying for. One person shared that we ought to expect the Lord to only give us whats good for us and so we can pray but expect that we will get answers according to God's wisdom and perfect knowlwdge of our needs.

What came to my mind was that prayers our not fundamentally an opportunity for us to exoress our will to God and ask him to suspend the laws of nature and help us escape the consequences of our choices. A good way to approach the altar of prayer is to seek God's will and to ask for the strength to carry it out. We do have our own agency and it is appropriate that we ask for stength,  wisdom and support to carry out many good things of our own free will and choice.  We ought also to seek the Lord's will for us and seek to do it. Prayeer should be at least as much about seeking as it is about pleading.