As a Christian, you have a direct line to the heavenly throne of God, but if you "don’t dial the right number" your call won’t go through. Pray to God the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in fellowship with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. “The Holy Spirit helps us with our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us” (Rom 8:26). One of the reasons our prayers are not effective is because we have unconfessed sin in our life, and another is we’ve ignored God’s mandate to study Scripture and grow spiritually. “Stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from His Word” (Rom 12:1-3). A lack of trust in God, a malfunction in the faith rest technique is another reason prayer is not answered.