Have faith. That’s a large order for most humans, once they’ve had a few life experiences under their belt. It can start with Santa Claus not bringing you the prayed for toy, and continue with your “hearing” or “knowing” your angel or saint or guide tell you something is going to happen that you really want – and then it doesn’t. A call for a date, getting a job, restoring your health…the list is long. Our parents, church or 
culture tell us to pray, it doesn’t work, and we lose faith. God or a saint or an angel doesn’t exist because we heard them say we would get something, we didn’t – so it is all a lie, it is our imagination. Yet…there were other times when you KNOW your prayer was answered and something unexpected and wonderful happened because of the answer. So then you are tempted to throw up your arms, state you surrender and you will never understand how it all works!
We are moving into an era in which we are attempting to figure out precisely how energy works. Scientists in all disciplines, metaphysicians, religious figures are all exploring the intricacies of subtle energy. Whether it is a spiritual scientist tracking the light fields that become matter, or a scientist studying the principles of quantum physics – all are discovering that there are certain principles of energy that apply to these subtle situations, that can be replicated, and quantified.
Dowsers – those folks who use pendulums, rods or their body to locate information – have evolved certain principles that permit them to get accurate answers. A lot of these principles apply to understanding when faith works, and how.
The foremost principles are: be detached, invoke the protection of the light/source of all, if you work with guides invoke their presence, be 
thorough, specify exactly what it is you are seeking.
Let’s say they are downsizing at your place of work. You pray you don’t get fired, as you have a lot of bills to pay and a family to support. But you do get fired. And your faith takes an immediate downward spiral; your prayers were not answered.
Or – you THINK your prayers are not answered. You forgot how you disliked the job, really wanted to do something else with your life and feel you are trapped. You prayed for help with your life.
Or – when you were in spirit, before you were born, you discussed with your inner family that in order to be an expert in some aspect of spirit, you required experience in an area you really did not care to explore in previous incarnations (say attention to detail such as required on a processing line in a factory), and agreed to learn that in this life, with the understanding that once that lesson was learned, you would move on.
Or – your spirit wanted to understand how energy is transmitted through matter, but when you incarnated, you forgot about that interest except when it came time for a job, you became a telephone line man, physically working with lines of energy but gradually waking up to that fact that you wanted to know more…
There are so many scenarios that occur in all our lives here on earth in which we are participating as part of a universal plan of maturing energy. When something happens in our lives that appears catastrophic, it’s time to pull back into our personal center and focus on the lessons to be learned.
When we start, it’s good to call on help from the light forces of the universe, however you define them – Jesus, Buddha, Universal Light, the angels. Each of these forms is a bona fide spirit energy that prevails in consciousness, and who can assist you.
At first you may feel like you are flailing about, asking for help everywhere. Gradually, you must focus on the energy that is coming forward to assist. Christians know this, assigning qualities to various saints such as Christopher for assisting travelers; Hindus know this assigning these qualities to various gods such as Ganesh for good luck at work. This energy that you are calling towards you has specific qualities and functions. Sit with it as it strengthens, and learn from it. The energy will give you information, such as, “Yes, you have lost your job. Good. It is time for you to move on and learn about …..” On your part, you need to listen and move forward to actually learn …..
That is, the energies can help you and provide you with information about the way forward. But you must do your part as well. You need to learn to ask sincerely, from the heart, and then LISTEN or FEEL for the answer; not impose the answer you want on the situation. We have free will: we can choose to override the subtle answers from spirit with our own thought forms, but then we are not certain about the results – we impose what we feel we should have instead of what the universe in its wisdom has laid out before us. We think the result, but that may not be the result in actuality. However, when we work with our guides or spirit, and align with the energies, then we can affect the result from inside the flow, which is more effective than trying to push the strong energies from the outside.
Lastly, sometimes prayer will perform miracles: you can pray for a recovery from an illness, for example, and recover. This occurs when you move into solid alignment with the universal forces, and someone or something helps you to lock into good alignment. The person praying has actually transformed their own consciousness in some way, so that they can align. This occurs when the lessons have been learned and processed. It appears to be a “miracle” but these miracles also follow cosmic laws of energy and two people with exactly the same seeming outer circumstances may experience two different outcomes, depending upon their own responses to the situation, and their own evolutionary needs.
So when looking at the quality of “faith,” this can become an amazing experience of learning how the universe actually functions, in a spiritually scientific manner.