I Believe; Help My Unbelief

I think I agree with dbravo's response to my post. As I explain the way I agree with it, others may say we see it differently.
I don't.

Some will probably be familiar with this story:
I lost my car keys in a park once. I gave up trying to find them and Cyndi, who was not my wife at the time, asked if I prayed to find them. I said something like, "No- I think God has better things to do than find my keys- and if I'm not praying for bigger, more serious things, than I'd better not dare pray for something as stupid and trivial as keys." She thought that if it was important to me, it would be important to God. I thought that the reverse should be true. I should not be trying to convince God that what I think is important is really all that important, rather I should spend more time having my will and mind conformed to God's and I could not see my keys fitting into that picture.
Long story short, she said if I wouldn't pray for me finding my keys, she would. I said she could go ahead and waste her time but feel guilty about wasting God's.

I went back the next day for one last look before I spent the money on re-keying my car and while I was there, a couple of kids from a school adjoining the park walked by. I asked if they had seen any keys laying around. They paused and looked at each other, then said a mister so and so had found some keys. They took me to him and my keys. Man, I hate that story.
I do think we fail to pray because of a lack of faith, and I'm going to discuss faith pretty broadly here. It's not always because we believe God cannot accomplish such and such, it may sometimes be because of that. But I am sometimes afraid to pray because of what God can do. I confess my failure to pray for my brother in the last post in the context of the prophetic Psalm referenced because it's hard for me to accept that my brother being in jail is an answer to prayer- I lack faith there. If my brother is hardened to this, what will happen if I keep praying for him? God's not nice.

Additionally, real earnest prayer requires action on my part- not just the praying, but responding. To a certain extent, I've worked through that last part in my life. I am not as spiritually lazy as I have been in the past. I know and desire that when I pray I will be an instrument in God's work. I now fear what will happen to people if I pray for them and they continue to reject God. That doesn't always stop me, but it makes me tentative- I lack faith here too. How much breaking can I watch my brother go through?

So there is no fruit to my labor,
There is nothing around me that I can use,
Everything is dead and barren,
But God is salvation

Farewell Ride-Beck
We Are All Made of Stars-Moby
White Room-Cream
Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah-Violent Femmes
Village Ghetto Land-Stevie Wonder
Sylvio-Bob Dylan
Bodies-Sex Pistols