Yes, We Can Prepare Our Hearts for Grace - and are Called To Do It

That's What Advent Is All About.

Did you catch this, from Isaiah 40?

3 The voice of one that crieth in the wilderness:
"Prepare ye the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God."

The desert is our hearts. We can clean up our moral act. We can pray and fast and read Scripture and other spiritual readings. We can strive to forgive and to love and to hope when hope seems all but lost. We can do valiant battle with temptation. We can examine our conscience and try our best to repent; that is, to change course.

We may not win these struggles; it matters little. Our faith is not in our struggles. (Our struggles ARE our faith.)  What matters far more than winning is the struggle itself. That's what shows us our shortcomings, empties our pride, teaches us many other lessons, and prepares us for Grace, when He comes to us. "For by grace are ye saved, through faith..."  (Ephesians 2:8)  Through faith. If our relationship to God matters enough to us to call forth our poor effort, then He will accomplish the rest: 

4 Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth.

Or if it doesn't matter that much to us, then for as long as that is true, there is obviously no way to have the intimate, intensely loving relationship with Him, which we call salvation.