"Prevailing, or effectual prayer, is that prayer which attains the blessing that it seeks. It is that prayer which effectually moves God. The very idea of effectual prayer is that it affects its object." ~ Charles G. Finney
Prayer, to be effectual (producing an intended effect), must be by the intercession of the Spirit. You never can expect to offer prayer according to the will of God without the Spirit. There must be a faith such as is produced by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost.
As a general thing, Christians who have backslidden and lost the spirit of prayer will not get a once into the habit of persevering prayer. Their minds are not in a right state, and they cannot fix their thoughts so as to hold on till the blessing comes. If their minds were in that state in which they would persevere till the answer came, effectual prayer might be offered at once, as well as after praying ever so many times for an object. But they have to pray again and again, because their thoughts are so apt to wander away and are so easily diverted from the object.
Most Christians come up to prevailing prayer by a protracted (lengthened, over time) process. Their minds gradually become filled with anxiety about an object, so that they will even go about their business sighing out their desires to God. Just as the mother whose child is sick goes round her house sighing as if her heart would break. And if she is a praying mother, her sighs are breathed out to God all the day long. If she goes out of the room where her child is, her mind is still on it; and if she is asleep, still her thoughts are on it, and she starts in her dreams, thinking that perhaps the child may be dying. Her whole mind is absorbed in that sick child. This is the state of mind in which Christians offer prevailing prayer.
Now, do not deceive yourselves with thinking that you offer effectual prayer without this intense desire for the blessing. I do not believe in it. Prayer is not effectual unless it is offered up with an agony of desire. The Apostle Paul speaks of it as a travail of the soul. Jesus Christ, when He was praying in the garden, was in such an agony that “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44)
[Taken from Principles of Prayer by Charles G. Finney]
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