Desperate Times Call For Desperate Prayer?

JEREMIAH 42 v 1-22

What makes us complacent with prayer in the good times but not in the hard times?
The few remaining people of Judah finally turn to God because all else has failed. Why do we sometimes leave God as the last resort, the back-up plan, our emergency ejector seat? The people were desperate and they wanted Jeremiah to intercede for them and their situation. The people way waver but God has remained faithful to them and always will to the end of time. Do I think God is unhappy they have only come to him now or maybe he is glad they have finally. Well this is my understanding of God - He is upset when we go against or away from him but he is waiting on the lookout for when we come back. Luke 15 v 11-31 (The Parable of the Lost Son) key verse - (20) "So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."  The son returns to his father because he is in desperate need, but the father welcomes him home. But the father must have been hurt deeply by the way his son left because his son basically said, "I wish you were dead so I can have your inheritance, but seen as you are alive can i have it anyway."

"The giver should come before the gifts."

Do I sometimes, concentrate on the gifts and be a bit complacent with the giver and all the praise and worship He deserves? I don't God's plan A was to put the people in desperate situation with Jeremiah, but the only way they would realise is rule and reign was to allow the Babylonians to come. Jeremiah was faithful in hard and good times, but the people wavered. Jeremiah was like a strong tree and yet the people were merely blades of grass wavering as the political, religious and social climate changed.

I don't think it should take desperate times for desperate prayer; we should be desperate for more of God all the time.