When Success Becomes Your God

There was a moment in swamps of Florida when I broke.

I had been recycled in the Florida phase of the U.S. Army Ranger School. Then, I had failed my only two patrol evaluations that I should have received. Without another opportunity, I would be dropped from the course. For someone whose identity was built on performance, that felt like collapse. I remember sitting in the dirt, exhausted and humiliated, and for the first time in years I cried. Then I prayed.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t theological.

It was bargaining.

I told God that if He would let me pass, I would change. I would live differently. I would take faith seriously.

A few days later, I was given an unlikely additional opportunity at that evaluation (one that normally isn’t granted). I passed. I graduated. I moved on.

And I forgot the prayer.

At the time, I believed I had succeeded because of what I did. Because that was the rule of my life.

Control. Effort. Win. Repeat.

The World That Formed Me

I grew up in chaos.

My biological father was absent. My mother did her best to raise me on her own. When she remarried, we moved from Ohio to Florida. My stepfather was abusive. Home was not a place of peace. It was a place you learned to navigate carefully.

I spent most of my time outside. Sports became an outlet. Work became independence. Suppression became strength.

The unspoken rules I absorbed as a young man was simple: Be tough. Don’t feel too much. Earn your own way. Never depend on anyone.

Masculinity, in the world I saw early on, was rooted in power and control. Fear commanded respect. Strength meant dominance.

But I was fortunate. Along the way, I encountered other men who embodied something different . Particularly a retired Marine Corps Master Sergeant who taught at my high school. Discipline without chaos. Authority without abuse. Purpose without volatility.

He changed the trajectory of my life.

Through an Army ROTC scholarship, I left Florida and attended college in Kentucky. I knew instinctively that if I stayed in my hometown, my life would deteriorate. I didn’t know where that conviction came from at the time. Looking back, I do.

But even then, I was still driven by the same operating system:

Compete. Achieve. Win.

Success as Salvation

In college, faith receded into the background. I debated against the existence of God. I read philosophy. I found intellectual reinforcement for skepticism. Organized religion, I concluded, was harmful. Irrational at best.

The Army rewarded my intensity. Ranger School, infantry leadership, competitive excellence. All of it reinforced the idea that success was earned. That I was in control.

When I applied for the Army’s funded law school program and was denied the first time, I refined my application, improved my scores, and applied again. I was accepted.

Vanderbilt Law School. Academic success. Top of my JAG Corps training. Senior Prosecutor.

Each milestone reinforced the same internal narrative:

You did this.
You earned this.
You are in control.

Achievement became my religion.

Control became my savior.

Confronting Evil

As a prosecutor, I began handling cases involving sexual assault, child abuse, homicide, domestic violence. Hundreds of them. Over time, I looked directly at the worst of humanity.

You can only stare at evil for so long before it demands a framework bigger than you. You cannot rationalize depravity.

The work changed me. Depression crept in. Irritability. Anxiety. Emotional exhaustion.

At home, life looked stable. My wife and I were building a family. We had children. We had structure. But spiritually, I had drawn a line in the sand.

My wife had grown up in the church. I told her plainly that I did not believe in organized religion and did not want it shaping our home. She did not challenge me. For years, she set aside something she loved because of my convictions.

At the time, I thought I was protecting our family from superstition.

Looking back, I was protecting my pride.

The Thought That Wasn’t Mine

One evening, driving home from work, something shifted.

I was halfway home in my truck when a thought entered my mind. One that did not feel like it originated from me.

Who are you to prevent your wife from seeking God?
Who are you to prevent your children from being exposed to something you haven’t even seriously examined?

It stopped me.

I had built an entire worldview on intellectual confidence, but I had never deeply studied what I was dismissing.

I went home and told my wife to find a church. I told her I would go. I rationalized it at first as a sacrifice for her. Maybe I would extract a few useful moral principles.

But as I sat there week after week, I realized something unsettling. I did not know enough to evaluate what I was hearing.

As a lawyer, when something matters, you go to the primary source.

So I did.

I read the Bible from beginning to end.

I read Christian apologetics. I read atheist critiques. I listened to debates. I wrestled with the text itself.

And slowly, the foundation I had constructed began to crack.

Ignoring something of that magnitude — if it were true — would be irrational.

The Back Porch

Eventually, I confided in a close friend. I expected skepticism. Instead, he told me that he and his wife had been praying that the Holy Spirit would work on my heart.

Shortly after, a few of us committed to a spiritual discipline challenge. Eliminating distractions, dedicating time to prayer, silence, and reflection.

I did not want to do it.

But I did.

One night, sitting alone on my back porch under the stars, something in me finally surrendered. There was no dramatic vision. No audible voice. Just clarity.

“I believe.”

Not because it made my life easier.
Not because it improved my résumé.
Not because it fit culturally.

But because I could no longer deny it.

What Surrender Produces

After that night on the porch, faith did not remain private.

It couldn’t.

Three of us who had walked through that initial spiritual discipline together felt the same conviction: this was not meant to be isolated. We had spent years pursuing achievement, strength, independence. But we had ignored intentional spiritual brotherhood.

So we did something simple.

We began meeting weekly.

Virtually at first. Consistently. Without fanfare.

We opened Scripture. We confessed weakness. We asked hard questions. We held one another accountable. We prayed. Not as performance, but as dependence.

And something changed.

Success had taught us to compete.
Faith began teaching us to surrender.
Brotherhood taught us to be honest.

Over time, we felt compelled to widen the circle. We invited other men who were serious, capable, responsible, and spiritually thoughtful. Men who carried weight in their homes and professions but desired deeper, more honest brotherhood.

What I’ve come to see is this:

Isolation protects pride.
Brotherhood exposes it.

Success thrives in isolation.
Faith matures in community.

That weekly rhythm (disciplined, steady, intentional) has become one of the most stabilizing forces in my life. Not because we have all the answers. But because we refuse to pretend we do.

Being Called to Account

For most of my life, I believed strength meant control.

Control of outcomes.
Control of performance.
Control of narrative.

But control is a poor savior.

It cannot answer evil.
It cannot quiet conscience.
It cannot provide peace.

I had to be called to account.

Called to account for pride.
For self-sufficiency.
For assuming I was the final authority in my own life.

Now, my driving question is no longer, “How do I win?”

It is, “How do I surrender?”

Less concerned with being successful.
More concerned with being faithful.

Less interested in control.
More committed to obedience.

That shift is not comfortable. It is ongoing. It is humbling.

But it is real.