If we give God everything.....He will be our everything! I'm not talking our best 50%, or even 99%. It doesn't work if you give Him everything except a bad situation from the past, or a secret sin that you are living in. Is your boyfriend/girlfriend too important to you to completely give him/her to God? Is your job in His hands? Did you give your school to Him? Does He have your life just on Sundays or do you let Him take care of your Monday to Saturday? Who controls your life........You, Others, FATE, or God?
     From experience I can tell you that if anything but God is in complete control of every aspect of your life.....your life is completely out of control. I had a hard time giving Him my life because frankly I didn't think He could do a better job than I could. I was in college getting good grades. I wasn't partying too much. I went to a church on Sundays. I "knew" my Bible. I had a good family, great friends, I was doing pretty good. Unfortunately, I was empty. Don't get me wrong, I was saved......I just had no purpose, no motivation, and had fooled myself into thinking that I had control. I didn't want anyone (including God) to have control of me.
     I think a lot of you out there can see yourself in some of what I was talking about. We can control so few things in life that we decide that we won't give this one thing away to anyone. Because if WE do it.......no one can hurt us, we will experience only the problems that we allow, and if we give any of this away......we won't look strong to those around us.
    How disillusioned is this mode of thinking? I have news for you....those around you when you live this kind of life are probably exactly like you, so why would they care? And no one needs to hurt us because we do a good job of that already by pushing people away, sustaining yourself with everything from drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, to the psychological damage we do by being filled with anxiety, anger, pride, false hope, and SELF. Self loathing, self pity, self righteousness. And at least when I was living this way.....my problems didn't decrease.....they increased and controlled me.
    See, what I have learned is that somewhere along the line our concepts twist. For some it happens early in life, and for some it takes time to become blinded. The hurt that we try to save ourselves from...was taken care of on the Cross of Calvary by Jesus Christ, God's Son! The problems that we hide or run from....they were taken care of there too! And finally our strength/pride issue....we aren't as strong as we like to think. We fail. We fail ourselves and others almost hourly. If we aren't even able to be strong enough to handle the small problems of our day....how do we plan on holding together our jobs, school, loved ones, and friend's problems?  We logically can't! But you know what? GOD is ABLE!

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquities of us ALL to fall on HIM. (ISAIAH 53:6)

For God so loved the world that He gave His ONLY  begotten son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have everlasting Life. (JOHN 3:16)

God sending His Son, Jesus Christ, was planned from the beginning of time. Before He created us in His image God KNEW that we would choose to turn from Him and sin and live for ourselves. He knew before He created us that the only way to clean us from ALL the bad things we have and will do is by Jesus coming to earth, living a perfect life without  one sin, and being sacrificed for us. Before you were born, Christ died for you because HE loves you. But in order to completely save us not only did He have to be sacrificed, but He had to defeat death. After being declared dead on the cross, He was wrapped and buried in a tomb. 3 days later.........His body was gone and He rose up from the dead! And to prove that His body wasn't just stolen.....He appeared to a woman next to the tomb, 11 men who saw Him die, and then before He ascended back into Heaven he appeared to a crowd. HE LIVES!