Think of all the things you can be preoccupied with... If you take the time to isolate yourself from it all everyday and pour out your heart to God, you will be able to handle anything in life. But if you go your own way and only come to Him when the crisis hits, you may not even believe He is there to help you because you neglected Him all the other times. As Oswald Chambers writes:
"Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, 'I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I’ll put God to the test.' Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point—a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest—our best for His glory."
Everything hinges on giving it over to Him. Whatever time is spent otherwise dillutes the strength afforded by God. What is worth substituting for a full concentration of power in life? Ask someone whether they feel better about their spirituality now compared to when they first received salvation, and look into their eyes to see if they are telling the truth. The guage that measures the amount of satisfaction is their level of surrender.
