Praying in the face of failure

How should sportspeople pray? Can they pray to win? 

A wealthy widow called Proba asked a similar question to one of the greatest theologians of the first millennium, Augustine. Augustine majored on one main theme in his advice around prayer: 

Pray for happiness!

Augustine, like a good coach, doesn’t just tell us what to do; he makes us think. He tells us that if we have grasped that we are dependent on God for all things, then we have realised that all success and pleasures in this world only offer short-term happiness.