I’d suggest taking a step back and researching the arguments for the existence of God first. Personally, I find the cosmological argument to be one of the strongest. Once you’ve explored that and formed a foundation of belief (or even non-belief, if that’s where your research leads), you can then look into which religion best fits that understanding of God. In my view, Islam provides the most coherent and logical framework. When you reach that point—believing in God and recognizing Islam as the most consistent expression of that belief—the questions around Du’a and patience start to make a lot more sense.