Prayer? Who gets it?

Prayer,

So I receive when I don't ask I don't receive when I don't ask. When I pray He answers when I pray He doesn't answer (or so it seems). Sometimes I pray and it happens later sometimes I pray and it happens now sometimes it is so long ago i have forgotten and He has to remind me. He will do what He will do so when we pray does that mean that HE would not have done it even though He did not have a problem with it? I think that God is sovereign and relational. I think that He is going to do what He is going to do but that He likes to hear form us and we need to know that we rely on Him. I think that realization comes through prayer and that He also honours us hugely by wanting us to talk to Him. He will say in scripture that so and so persuaded Him (Abraham and Lot, Moses, etc.) but I think that the big picture God does what He wants, His solid not to be changed will and then there is His permissive will, that which God listens to us and says ok we can do it this way (Saul and Moses).I think that is why prayer is varying just like a father who has a set will that the child cannot cross, you must eat healthy, and then those nights when the child needs cheering up or they to a ballgame and get to stay up past their bedtime and eat hot dogs and ice cream. Solid will and permissive situational will. Its complicated but boy am I glad that God is alive and a thinking rational human being who can be spontaneous and not a robot that only follows a programed pattern of actions.