A mashal: This professor hands out test papers to his class with clear instruction that all students must hand in their papers before the bell rings. One moment later and you fail. The bell goes off and one student is still furiously scribbling answers. The professor approaches him and notifies him that he just flunked. “Do you know who I am?” says the student indignantly. “I do not know, nor do I care who you are” was his sharp reply, ” you failed the test”. “You mean to tell me you really don’t know who I am?” repeated the student. “Yes, I really don’t know”. “Great” said the student, “in that case…” and promptly slid his test paper into the class’s pile.
As an individual, we may not merit to have our tefilos answered, but the combined power of a tzibur is awesome.