The silver cup and prayer

Genesis
In reading chapter 44, we see that Joseph had his steward put his special silver cup in Benjamin's bag of grain.  It would be interesting to know what the steward was thinking at this point.  The previous trip that Joseph's brothers had made was already out of the norm, since their money had been returned to them.  This time, would the steward recall that incident and simply take this new action in stride, chalking it up to some strange eccentricity of Joseph?  Perhaps he wouldn't give it a second thought anyway, since it wasn't his place to question his master.  Still, he knew where the silver cup was, and yet he made a show of searching through all the bags, from oldest to youngest, before finally pulling it out.  The steward doesn't really play an important role in this story of God's will coming to fruition, but it would have been neat to be there to see this play out.

Acts
As I was reading Acts 12, the story of Peter's miraculous escape from prison, I was reminded of that lesson about the power of prayer.  Acts 12:5 says that the church was praying for Peter's release from prison.  Lo and behold, he does get released one night during an angelic visit.  He goes to the house of Mary, where a number of Christians were gathered and praying, and when Rhoda answered the door, saw Peter, and exclaimed over who it was, no one believed her.  They didn't realize that their prayers were going to make a difference.
A similar story on prayer recounts a tale of a country church who decided to hold a prayer meeting to ask God for rain to end the drought, as they relied on farming for their livelihood.  Well, all of them show up to the prayer meeting, but only one little old lady brings an umbrella.  All the rest of the people are surprised and ask why she had bothered bringing it, since it wasn't raining.  Well, she actually believed it was going to rain!
Why bother praying if you don't even believe that God might make your prayer happen?  Further still, you should believe that God will answer your prayers, because he does listen to the cries of his children.  There is a lot more that could be said on prayer, but I'll leave it at that.