Submission is vital to succeeding with God. In this relationship, all of the power and authority are on His side. He won’t let you be His partner—He insists on being the Alpha. He insists on His opinion being viewed as the one that trumps yours. He says that you must surrender yourself to the idea that pleasing Him is more important than pleasing yourself. Most Christians don’t come anywhere close to giving God full submission. They just give Him enough submission to acquire salvation, but then they spend their lives trying to keep Him at arm’s length by ignoring Him as much as possible. Decide that you’re not going to be just another fool who refused to pursue what really matters in life.

You were brought into being for the purpose of pursuing a personal relationship with your Maker. Sinking to new depths of immorality and being shocked by the discovery that your potential to do evil is far greater than you thought—these things should not be viewed as reasons for despair, but instead as priceless opportunities to move much closer to God. Ask Him to help you learn everything that He wants to teach you and to make you all that He wants you to be. Such a focus will not only steer you away from despair, but it will set you on a new course in life: one that involves the pursuit of what really matters. In the end, it really isn’t going to matter at all how many battles you won or how many bad guys you arrested or how many wars you helped to prevent. All that will matter is how well you know your Creator and how pleased He is with you. God often uses traumatic experiences to motivate us to correct our priorities in life. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.