Why Pray for the Will of the Lord?

In January, our Bible Study asked: What is something that you can pray for this year that, if it happened, it would totally and 100% be God who did it, no doubt?
I said, to be fully funded by the end of the year.
Jacob said, no, to be fully funded by my birthday. (which is Oct 3rd)
Fast forward a few weeks and we find out we're pregnant and due (drum roll, please) mid-October.
So look at that perfect timing! Our outrageous pray would have us financially set just in time to turn our attention to birthing our child.
Needless to say, we feel pretty good about this. We kinda feel like God placed that outrageous prayer on our lips when God prompted our Bible Study to ask this question, because He knew when we were going to have our family addition.

Do I think that just because God is cool with this timeline, that meeting it is a given?
No. Why? Because God kinda has this thing where He wants everyone to know that He is awesome. It's kinda a theme that permeates the entire Bible and time up to today.
So I expect that God will make me ask for it, beg for it, and scream that I can't do this on my own, before He makes a grand entrance. And in the spirit of beseeching the Lord for our needs, we ask others to come and pray with us, for us.
And on occasion, when I ask, "Can you pray that we'll be fully funded by Oct 3rd?", someone will bow their heads and pray, "and Lord, may your will be done."
...
.....
Now, I desire the will of the Lord in my life. I do, really I do.
But I just don't understand why people refuse to pray for specifics!

I think back to Abraham, who did not pray to God, "Hey, God, you seem pretty peeved right now. So if it's your will to totally obliterate Sodom, may it be done." No. He bargained with God. "Would you destroy the city if there were 50 good people left? Great! ...but what about 45? Ok! Good! How about 10? what if there were just 10?" (Now, it turns out that there weren't 10... But God did spare Lot's family!)

Moses in Exodus 32 talked God down from smiting all the Israelites. Not in the numbers game that Abraham used but by appealing to God's reputation. "God, if you kill off all these people, then the Egyptians you just rescued us from will think that we weren't actually your people. Plus, you promised that the Sons of Abraham would be a great nation. And inherit the world forever. That can't happen if everyone dies." So God relented. (Only to have the Israelites disobey again and punish them with a plague.)

Jesus tells a parable about the persistent widow in Luke 18, who came to an unjust judge repeatedly, asking for the same thing, again and again. Now, the judge didn't actually care about the woman, he just wanted her to stop bothering him. So finally he gave her what she wanted. And Jesus said, "Listen, if a shameless judge would grant her justice, why wouldn't your awesome God answer your prayers?" It seems that Jesus is trying to tell us we "should always pray and not give up" (Luke 18:1)

Now, I know that Jesus, when He demonstrates praying, includes that bit, "your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven." But I think his prayer is a bit of a vague framework. I think "your will" here is more of a general,  that all the nations would praise you, kind of will. Which is totally what Jacob and I are after. And now we'd like to discuss specifics.
And I know that on the mount, Jesus prays for this cup to be taken from him, but if it's the Lord's will, he'll let himself be crucified. But, again, I think asking God, "must I obey You, because I don't like what You want me to do" is different than "will You in Your great majesty please take care of these needs by this time? Please."

Outside of the Lord's prayer and Jesus' example being the reason for this tendency, I wonder if it comes from praying for healing. Which is hard. You want to pray that people get better, but you're afraid that they won't no matter your prayers. And, in the event they don't, it's easier to say that it was the will of God, which you prayed for, that your prayers not being answered or receiving an answer you didn't like. For some even, these words might be a gentle reminder to the grieving that God has a plan even if we don't like it, which I do think is appropriate.

I just don't think we need to give God permission to do what He wants. He is going to totally do what He wants. Even if we can fathom why He wanted that, God does what He wants. But in prayer, we get to come before Him. To repent. To praise. To thank. And to beseech. We get to ask for things.

And we're asking to be fully funded by Oct 3rd!
And we ask you to join us.
(And you can pray however you want. We appreciate your prayers even if you pray for the will of the Lord! :) )

"Then Jesus told his disciples [this] parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Luke 18:1