The result I want is just to praise, thank and worship the Lord. I don't really ask for much these days except for healing and protection for all from Covid.
I know that the ACTS prayer is effective because God is glorified. If what you mean by results is answers to supplication, it is not a guarantee that God will answer them but I am ok with that because God knows what He is doing.
Many of my personal prayer requests and also for others, have been granted by God. For example, I prayed for my friend who's marriage was under spiritual attack. God did something to stop the fights. Hopefully her marriage was completely saved.
Thank you for answering my request without feeling attacked. Sometimes I feel I can speak fairly well and with diplomacy...other times not so much.
I like your reply because in your first example you more or less stated that your intent matched the outcome. "God is glorified". That is one of the things people should be going for, and I use it to categorize prayer as successful or unsuccessful. In so much as your outcome matched your intent, your prayer was successful.
My definition of "effective", however, might be a little more stringent. By effective (or effectual) I mean: producing the desired effect; causing the desired outcome; or causing a desired thing to actually happen.
Your second example about the marriage fits my definition of "effective" as well as successful. You prayed for something to happen, and God caused it to happen. You may not exactly know how or why, so it might not be something you feel confident trying to repeat, but in this case it produced the effect that possibly would not have occurred had you not prayed. Learning what aspects of your prayer made that particular prayer effective, and how to repeat those aspects to create other effective prayers is what this thread is for.
I discovered a while back that God is more reliable than mathematics. God makes some promises along the lines of "If you do "A", then I'll do "B". What I'd discovered is that
if you keep your end of the bargain, God ALWAYS keeps his. That led to some very effective prayers as I learned to line up with the requirements...but those were often only in areas affecting me personally, and it began to feel self-serving.
One of my sisters-in-law I've sometimes described as "If you have an injury and want to keep it, you'd better not go around Debbie". She has learned a way of interceding that produces results. What amazes me in her cases is that she manages to do it where other people are involved...Other people who might not be keeping their end of the equation.
My description of this may sound clinical and unemotional because I'm simply trying to break it down in a way that shows it is possible to repeat... so that people can understand that it is indeed repeatable...but that's not to say that deep emotional involvement is unnecessary. Those who learn to intercede "effectually" seem to also learn how to connect with the burden of the other person in order to actually help carry it to the foot of the cross. They don't do it lightly or without emotion. But as
@planitsoon pointed out, a person also must know that strong emotions need to be kept in balance if the prayer is to work.
Perhaps that's enough for one post.
Love in Jesus,
Kelby