Prayer works for me. I attempt something without prayer, I might succeed, I might not. I pray first, and even if I fail I learn more from it. It helps harmonize everything.
But I cannot convince anybody of anything. You have to seek him out yourself. Good luck.
If you want to know how I philosophically resolve (for I must always do so) the problem of suffering and evil, here:
The argument that "If I were God I would swoop in and save everybody" is a fallacy. If you are going to presuppose a merciful God, then you have to have faith in life after death. If you are going to deny him, then you have to say that terrible things are just a cosmic burp, a conflict with forces beyond our control or ability to predict. Either way, death is not the worst thing in life.
From my point of view, yes, the tsunamis were terrible, a horrible loss of life - but I believe that those souls are not lost, but moving on (mostly) to a higher and better place. You can either accept that or not - but the point is that God is not going to abandon anyone. Death is the inevitable result of being alive in this universe. Sooner or later everyone dies, and most people die painful, agonizing deaths. Whether it is half-asleep in your own feces in a nursing home or overcome by smoke inhalation - we all die and it is almost always bad, bad, bad.
But through love, we can ameliorate the worst of the effects of life, and thus we learn how precious and important it is to love. And through faith, we can endure the worst deaths, confident that the lessons we learn will come in useful. And we hope in a better life after this one, for all.
Besides, if you were going to ask god to stop your neighbor from cutting your throat, that would imply a certain degree of faith and trust in him and his ability to choose correct actions for you, as well as your neighbor.It would hardly be fair to ask God to stop your neighbor from what we shall call "sin" and let YOU off the hook. Where would you and God draw the agreement lines? Would you be willing to let Him stop you from say, fornication, if He knew that it would harm somebody? Would you be able to accept His judgement and not question it? Or would you require a written statement regarding your intended action and the reason he stopped you? Can you see why the "God should intervene" argument is hypocritical, except for a truly sinless man? I don't think anybody really wants to give up their "pet sins" enough to accept that level of Divine intervention.
And finally, what if God DID intervene sometimes? How would you know if he prevented this earthquake from happening? How do you know that he DOESN'T prevent hundreds of similar quakes every day? The presence of suffering and evil in and of itself proves nothing regarding God's existence, or even his benevolence.
CZAR