The goal of my writing today is to inspire you to access the powerful transforming grace God has made available to us through prayer.

Prayer is the act of communicating with God. Let’s take a moment to consider the significance of that first sentence. Through prayer, you and I are given the ability to speak with Almighty God, the Creator of the universe and the Sustainer of all life. Prayer gives us direct access to the throne room of God. See Revelation 5:8. Prayer is an awesome opportunity to connect with God that is too often underutilized by believers.

Prayer can be offered through speaking, singing, writing, reading, or even just thinking. Yes, God even knows our thoughts! Prayer intimately connects the human to the Divine. We really need to consider the awesome privilege God has granted to us through prayer — and then we need to pray.

Many years ago, S.D. Gordon wrote, “The most important thing anyone can do for God or man is to pray. It is not the only thing, but it is the chief thing. The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer, nor those who say they believe in prayer, but I mean those people who take time to pray.”

Prayer is powerfully transformational — it always brings change to the person who prays. It can make the anxious peaceful, the fearful courageous, the vulnerable invincible, the offended forgiving — when we pray, God’s grace changes us.

Faith expressed in prayer can also change the heart of God and produce a change of outcomes—a miraculous intervention! For those who truly believe, faith is knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt what God can do. Jesus said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Luke 17:6. It is both motivating and humbling to think what our faith offered in prayer can accomplish. James tells us that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. See James 5.

But God doesn’t always do what we ask Him to do just because we ask with great faith. Sometimes our prayers collide with the deep and powerful current of God’s unchanging will. When that happens, all the prayers and faith in the world will not bring about the hoped-for miracle.

Jesus’ prayer of faith collided with God’s unchanging will in the Garden of Gethsemane. See Matthew 26:36-46. Jesus pleaded with God to find another way for salvation to be made available to humanity. I’m glad God was willing to say no to Jesus. Had He said yes, you and I would be lost and without hope forever.

Paul’s prayer of faith collided with God’s redemptive plan over a thorn in his flesh. See Corinthians 12:1-10. God’s answer was no, but He assured Paul that His grace was sufficient for the difficulty Paul was facing.

I’m certain all of us can point to times when our desperate prayers of faith collided with God’s unchanging will. Frankly, such collisions can result in deep disappointment with God because we know, without a doubt, He could have done it. Not getting what we want may cause us to struggle with the discipline of prayer. Why bother praying if God is just going to do what God is going to do anyway?

We pray because it establishes our lives on a firm foundation. Prayer sets life in a right order: in victory, God receives all of our praise. In loss, God receives all of our trust.

Prayer allowed Jesus to leave the Garden of Gethsemane and set His face resolutely toward Jerusalem. Jesus knew His heavenly Father could be trusted, so even though the answer wasn’t what He was hoping for, His faith caused Him to get up and start walking toward the cross.

Prayer allowed Paul to rejoice in His weaknesses so that by them, God’s power might be put on full display throughout his life. That is some pretty amazing faith — and all made possible through prayer.

I will leave you with the incredible story of three men who prayed and put their full faith in God. They would not bow down to an idol, even though the king warned them of certain execution in a fiery furnace if they did not comply. Their response to the king was, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it — but even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego understood that prayer does not always result in the outcome we want, but God can always be trusted either way. It is an amazing example of what happens when believers pray and put their full faith in God. See Daniel 3:16-18.

Friends, God’s grace is able to transform us — but only if we take the time to pray. Why not stop what you’re doing right now and talk with your heavenly Father for five minutes? He is ready to connect with you — and that connection will transform you.