"Intercessory prayer—to prevail—is to be unselfish. All prayer says, "Not my will, but Thine, be done." We are never to pray for things merely pleasing to us, irrespective of their relation to that holy will of God which embraces all His creatures as well as our particular selves. Pure and devoted souls will not obtrude their individual interests as imperative, among counsels that pertain to all humanity. No one of us should ask God to make the day clear for him or her—unless a clear day is best for all the interests of God's will." (Read the rest of James McClure's chapter)
In this excerpt from A Plea for Intercessory Prayer, McClure speaks of the God-given talent of intercessory prayer that has been given to all believers. This is one of the better chapters I have read on the subject.
"A powerless Christian ought to be considered as great a misnomer as a powerless thunderbolt. If the talent of prayer should be cultivated as assiduously as the talent of business is cultivated, the result would be that numberless people who never can be forceful in speech, nor bounteous in beneficence, nor energetic in evangelism, would become as effective forces for the world's help as any men and women who have ever lived."
McClure points out five groups of people we should be praying for.