I don't understand God.

With this recent disaster in San Diego, people have been calling for prayers. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families", and "pray that the Santa Ana conditions let up", etc.

It seems to me, though, uneducated in these matters as I am, equally likely that God is punishing San Diego for it's wickedness (or something) than it is that he will help us through this. (Which is to say, both seem pretty unlikely to me, but equally so).

If the fire was God's will, then praying for help seems pretty silly, doesn't it?
If the fire was not God's will (is there such thing?) then it seems unlikely that He wouldn't know there was a fire going on, and that He would choose to help or not, whether or not we prayed. And sounds like he's not helping much.

Maybe I'm thinking of a too literal meaning of the term "prayer". If it's a metaphor for hoping everything gets better, then it makes a lot more sense to me.

Unless this is all a test to test mankinds faith, etc, etc, in which case, from a skeptical point of view, that's a pretty handy fail-safe answer for almost everything.