Jesus and Chemotherapy

An article in today’s paper prompts me to note the use of supplicatory prayer and my typical reaction to it.
A Christian pastor’s wife has been diagnosed with cancer and claims she is improving by way of “Jesus and chemotherapy.” Instantly, my hackles are raised, to see the Holy Name of Jesus used in this way, coupled with a medical procedure as a means to a cure. Surely Jesus does not need the assistance of chemotherapy!
It would appear that, for most Christians, “praying” is 95% supplication and perhaps 5% praise.
Of course that 95% includes Catholic basketball players who almost routinely cross themselves when they stand at the “free-throw” line, as well as families gathered beside a loved one’s bedside in a hospital, hoping for a recovery.
The question arises for me, though apparently not too often for those who use supplecatory prayers, what happens to our faith if the ball falls short of the basket and the relative in the hospital dies anyway? Does God weigh in on the side of one team rather than the other? Does He decide to give the doctor’s medicine a little extra boost, or send the family out of the hospital room to plan for a funeral? Is it Christian to use prayer in this fashion?
The quick answer is, yes. We are told by Jesus Christ himself to pray for God’s intercession at certain times so, obviously, it must be a proper thing for a Christian to do. But I worry about the level of faith and to what degree such prayers are ended with the words “however, thy will be done.”
As a Contrarian Catholic, it concerns me to realize that even in warfare between two Christian countries, the clergy on both sides pray for and with the soldiers before they go out with their weapons to kill or be killed. History accounts tell us that Catholic bishops in Germany blessed German soldiers as they prepared to fight the Christians of Britain and the U. S. –just as did the Bishops of the latter countries for their own “boys.”
In my own prayer-life, I seldom use prayer like this for myself, yet I have a gut feeling that it is not only a good thing, but even an effective thing, to pray for others in their times of need. When hearing others relate stressful situations in their lives, it not only comforts both them and myself, when I assure them that “I will keep this in my prayers,”…I also have a feeling that doing so might very well be effective in bringing about the desired result.
I wonder at my resistance or repugnance when I read comments such as those I found in today’s paper. Does a part of me want to say that God doesn’t play favorites, taking one side against another? Intellectually, it seems clear enough, that God works his Will in a general way through the nature he has set in motion. If it rains in one place and causes a game to be called and the sun shines in another place and a team wins, it is…my mind tells me…simply because of the nature of things. The clouds form over a given area through the laws of nature and team in another place wins for the same reason (better training or, perhaps, just because most of the players feel more confidant on that particular occasion!)
I guess what it comes to is that, although supplicatory prayer is a good and Christian thing to do, one should not expect God to intervene and even reverse things in the normal course of nature very often…that such interventions will be rare and should be expected (if at all) only if the prayers are for a worthy and important matter. Surely, the winning of the one point to bring victory to the players of "Notre Dame," and the defeat of those from "St. Monica’s"…surely that does not rise to that level.
Also, I cannot help but think that prayers of worship and adoration are of a higher order and more worthy of us as Christians than are prayers of supplication.