A Question About Prayer

 As I set about praying for someone's trouble yesterday, it occurred to me to wonder if prayer while having unconfessed sin that I was well aware of, on my mind, would render such prayer in effect a curse.  Would I be laying more trouble on the person prayed for?

Or would it be merely ineffectual?  What was the image used in scripture, like the crashing of cymbals? 

Or, is this one of those things where if your own conscience condemns you, you better treat it as sin? 

Is prayer like a spell and its the words that are effective?  No, of course not.

I think my understanding is, that I will never be able to with awareness process all the sin in my life.  I am a creature of this fallen world. But, if I place myself under the headship of Jesus, as we call him in our language, and if I pray in his name, as if I were he, in some sense, then my prayer will be effective.  In spite of myself.

I also think part of the deal is to no be so taken up with myself, like the caterpillar and all its legs who got to thinking too much about how to walk.

What say you?