The Longest Three Minutes

Marcus Chen had been sober for fourteen months when the craving hit him in the parking lot of a Houston grocery store. It was a Tuesday evening, unremarkable in every way, except that the neon sign of the liquor store across the street suddenly felt like it was speaking directly to him.

His sponsor, a retired Marine named David, had told him something months earlier that Marcus wrote on a card and kept in his wallet: "When the urge comes, don't fight it alone first. Drop to your knees — even if it's just in your heart — and surrender to something bigger than yourself. Then, and only then, stand up and say no."

Marcus sat in his car, gripped the steering wheel, and prayed three words: "God, I'm Yours." He felt his breathing slow. Then he called David. Three minutes later, the craving passed — not gradually, but suddenly, like a shadow retreating from a floodlight.

James understood this order perfectly. "Submit yourselves, then, to God," he wrote. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Notice the sequence. Submission comes before resistance. We don't white-knuckle our way to victory over temptation. We first fall into the arms of the Almighty, acknowledging that we cannot win alone. From that place of surrender, our resistance carries the authority of heaven behind it. And the enemy — whether it wears the face of addiction, bitterness, or despair — has no choice but to flee.