It amazes me when people think the gospel of Jesus as some sort of magical cure-all that will solve all the world's ills. Even if He is omnipotent centuries of experience should tell us that having neither the gospel as the Mormons would put it, or Jesus as the Christians would would solve all the world's ills. Even if accepting Jesus as your savior brings you peace, it does not mean you still do not have to work on your problems.
Too often the human element of spiritual growth or even personal growth if you do not believe in a higher power gets overlooked. Accepting Jesus as your savior or getting to know God will not alone solve an addiction problem if you have one or cause your other diseases to go away. Even people who believe in miracles will often tell you that some sort of effort is required on the part of the petitioner to get things to move in the appropriate direction.
Yet many Christians think that accepting Jesus will be the first and only step required to change their lives. This may be true for the person who thinks to get into Heaven by the grace of god alone, but as far as improving your circumstances, habits or behaviors goes, a lot more needs to be done than simply giving your life over to someone else.
All too quickly people of a religious bent are ready to credit someone else for something they did. Humans may not have supernatural powers, but the power of determination should not be underestimated. Whether or not God or whatever power you believes in helps you overcome your problems, your problems would not be solved without some effort on your part. This is not to say that prayer does not have its place and giving your life over to god, if that is what helps you do not have their place, but too often no credit is given to individual effort.
It seems whether or not God is present or active in the world, he can occasionally give us the nudge we need to go in the right direction, but it does no good unless we act on the opportunities as they become available to us.
