Prayer, the Holy Spirit, and the Laying on of hands

Last night, I heard a very interesting, very compelling message concerning the laying on of hands, and the receiving of the Holy Spirit. The pastor is doing a sermon series on the foundations of our faith. The list of these foundations that he is working from is the one located in Hebrews 6 where it says "Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment." This basically means that the author has already laid the foundation for our faith in these things: repentance, instructions about baptisms and the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgement. So if this a list of the foundations of our faith, why is it that so many people are against the laying on of hands? The way the pastor put it, there are generally two camps; those who get spooky about and try to push people over by pushing on their forehead, and those who don't believe in it at all. Now, I know that it is not uncommon for believers to lay their hands on others while they are praying, but he was specifically talking about receiving the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, and the work that the Holy Spirit does. In the verses that he gave us as back-up for this, the disciples and those they lead to Christ do not receive the Holy Spirit until other believers lay their hands on them.

So here's where I'm confused. Why is this practice today shunned by all but the Charismatics? And why are the charismatics looked upon as the "off the wall" believers who take things too literally? We are told to pray. We are told that prayer works, that God can and does change His mind when His children petition Him for something. And yet, the way that I was raised was that while prayer works, and God always answers, He does not always answer in the way that we want Him to answer. I was taught that God gives us three answers: Yes, No, or Wait. If God loves me and cares for me so much, why did virtually every prayer I ever prayed feel like God was telling me no (or what I took to be a no, since most of the time, the immediate result was silence, and the long term result was something that I did not want)? If the Bible tells us to do it, and we believe that the Bible should be taken literally, then why do we act as though we have to do it, without really believing that it works? Why do we not take prayer more seriously?

My other question is this. My experience was that God's most common response to prayer is no. However, I have a very good friend who goes to a church with a much different experience in the results of prayer. I went to a luncheon with her and her mom once, where the other ladies in the church told story after story of how God had answered their prayers. Why then, did God constantly tell me no, but seemingly always tell them yes?

The only thing I can think of is that the manner in which I was taught about prayer was a cautious manner. I remember having a discussion with someone about a similar topic, and that person said that while the results of the strong prayer aspect of the charismatic doctrine is good, they often put an emphasis on your inabilities, your lack of faith, when God does not respond the way you want Him to. That leads to a feeling of inadequacy on your part, when really, God might just be saying no. On the other hand, however, I feel like this cautious manner is wrong. Is it not better to petition God about it, with the faith that He will do as He has said He would do, than to not do it at all? Not doing it at all, or doing it out of Christian obligation, seems like saying that we don't believe it will work. If we don't believe God will do as He has said He will do, then what is the point in our beliefs? If God is limited to what we THINK He can do, He really isn't worth our worship. But He is. We just need to start acting like it more often, and stop shying away from things that we don't understand.