Intercessory Prayer: Does It Have An Effect on Sickness?

The Dallas Morning News reported, "to many people who believe in God, there's no question that prayer works. Proving it by scientific means is another matter……."
There appears to be a complexity involved in attempting to measure prayer rationally, statistically, or empirically. How much is understood about the power and mystery of prayer, spirituality, divinity, and how it intersects with the human/social equation?

Social science and religious communities seem reluctant to mesh on the subject of examining the efficacy of prayer and health. This type of research, though, is receiving more attention as the role of faith and spirituality in health and healing is being seriously examined (O'Mathuna, 1999).

Prayer means different things to different people. Some researchers think it is just a mental effort by the afflicted person to improve his/her physical or emotional well being, or that of another. Others believe it is a form of sending healing energy. But for Christians, prayer is a humble request to God to bring about His will, what He knows is best, in a particular situation. It impacts the state of mind, but is not a state of mind. The person praying requests something specific, but must remember that the prayer will only be answered if it is in the perfect will of God. In this context of Christian prayer, it is difficult to measure the outcomes of prayer scientifically.

In researching prayer, therefore, researchers must sift out the type of prayer being utilized. It is obviously difficult to know God's will in many circumstances. He may allow some illnesses to proceed, while He heals others. So how do clinical trials control for this? 

Faith is also an important ingredient in prayer, and everyone's level of faith is different. How do researcher measure for that? Whether or not prayer is answered, is dependent upon God's power, whether it is in His will, and whether it glorifies Him. How much of prayer research glorifies God?