So many people who, because of whatever reason, have decided to stop fighting.

I get it. I get that it's hard to be alone, that culture doesn't accept me, that often it takes more faith than I feel I can give to trust in God when it seems like it will never work out. I get that the allure of just finding the right guy who I love and loves me back seems like it could fix everything. I get that falling in love is intoxicating and blurs everything I once took for granted. I get that trusting God brings eventual blessings, where trusting myself makes things happen now.

But I also get this:

Following God will always bring greater happiness than any other alternative.

Always.

I get that life is hard. But, deep down inside, where my soul can hear His voice, I know that following God is always worth it.

And so it's always worth fighting.

It's always worth making the choice today to be morally clean even if I've made major mistakes.

It's always worth moving towards being sober even if I've failed a thousand times.

It's always worth reading the scriptures, praying, talking with a bishop, attending Church, and getting a recommend for the temple.

It's always worth lighting a fire of faith and trusting God to take care of me and my enormous personal needs.

It's always worth preparing for eternal life even if I don't know how that is going to work or at all what it's going to look like.

And it's always worth inviting others to do the same.

And so I'm going to do something that I don't do here at (G)MG often.

It's not super obvious unless I bring it up... but almost everything I write here is in first person. This blog is about my story, and it's written almost 100% about me. I focus on my story because the moment I talk about someone else, it instantly opens me up to criticism. No one can criticize my life and my thoughts, but it's easy to criticize as soon as I try to make an application to someone else.

So, with the knowledge that at least some people will find the words written here unbearably presumptuous, I want to ask *you* to do something.

I want to ask you to give your life back to God. 

Completely. No matter what that means, how inconvenient your past decisions may make it, and no matter the seeming consequences.

If you're a guy married to a guy, to divorce him (and keep loving him without sex involved). Yes, I said it.

If you're a guy with a boyfriend you're sexually actively with, to stop having sex or anything like sex (and break off the relationship if he's not willing to have a nonsexual one).

And even if you're not, I ask you to give up the desires of your heart and put them all on the altar of sacrifice, no matter what they are. 

In our culture today, sometimes people say, "God would never do that," or "A *loving* God would never ask someone to give that up." People who say that don't get it. They don't know God, and they definitely haven't seen the enormous positive personal change that can and will come when men are willing to give God literally everything and experience transformation at His hands. And that can happen no other way.

Yes, I am asking you to give God everything. To give up your desire for friendship, for love, for family, for fame, for wealth, for peace, for comfort, for acceptance. I am asking you to give Him your desire to be a parent and a spouse, to give up your will and your loves and 100% of everything you hold most dear.

And, in return, when you have finally filled the altar of sacrifice with everything, when you have decided to trust God and His ways and to let Him show you the pathway to happiness...

Then I promise that God will take the sacrifices that you make and make you into something far better than you could have ever hoped for.

True, lasting happiness is not something we are given or that comes from the outside. It comes from being like God - and that begins when we are willing to entrust Him with everything.

So again, I ask you: Will you trust Him? Will you give Him everything? Will you make changes in your life?

Will you give your life back to God?