When God Becomes Real

Life makes us pray or harden. When we pray, our hearts open—we become vulnerable, humble, honest, and loving. When we harden, our hearts close—we become defensive, proud, deceptive, and we lose our capacity for love. This is a truth that Jesus sums up in Matthew 24:12:

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold …

Matthew 24:12 NIV

Between prayer and hardening, prayer is the better choice, just as vulnerability, humility, honesty, and love are the better choices. These choices are difficult to make in a world too often cold and chaotic, but that’s why spending 12 days in prayer this Christmas season is so important. 

Regardless of where we are on the spiritual spectrum, these days of prayer can keep our love alive, rekindle love that we’ve lost, or help us learn to love for the first time.

Why does prayer work? I want to awaken us all to this reality: when life presses against our human limits, especially in cold and chaotic times, prayer is our soul gasping for the air of God’s presence. Prayer is oxygen for the soul.

This begins with faith. In his book, Prayer, Oxygen for the Soul, Jacques Philippe says, “Faith is the gateway to the mystical life. It’s what brings us into real contact with God.” Praying—especially when we are face-to-face with our human limits—makes God real to us. Philippe goes on to say, “Prayer is the best way to be united with God.” When we are united with God, we can conquer this cold and chaotic world. As Scripture teaches in 1 John 5:4 NCV: “And this is the victory that conquers the world—our faith.”

So if you have been hardened by the painful, difficult, frustrating, overwhelming, and crushing experiences we all face in this world, practice these 12 days of prayer. When you do, God will become real to you. He will help you resist the temptation to harden so that you don’t lose out on his love and the love you can experience with others. This is God’s own promise:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26 NIV

This 12-day guide is designed for anyone who is wrestling with faith, fighting through discouragement, unable to pray but unable not to, or even wondering if God has anything to do with their life at all.

Every weekday for the next twelve days, we will send you a brief biblical inspiration that will move you to pray in a different way, using people in the Bible as our foundation.

Starting Monday, here’s what you’ll get each day:

1. A Scripture
2. Four prayer starters that will help you pray in a way that makes God real.
   • Perception —A prayer to change how you see.
   • Process —A prayer to change how you think.
   • Purpose — A prayer to change what you live for.
   • Path — A prayer to change where you are going.
3. A Christmas song recommendation that will help you open your heart to God.

This is prayer. It’s not a performance. It’s not about doing each day perfectly. It’s about discovery. It’s about facing our limits. It’s about God becoming real.