I am twenty-eight years old. Since young, I have had a bad habit of biting my fingernails. Friends and family would constantly tell me how unclean, unprofessional, and mangled my fingers looked.

Once, a friend’s dad even offered me $20 if I could go on for a week without biting my nails. I could not do it. On another occasion, I landed in hospital on Christmas Eve with a bacterial infection. It required a doctor to surgically cut open my pinky finger to deal with the infection.

I even tried hypnosis several years ago at the advice of a friend. It worked for a few months but the bad habit returned.

Finally, in February 2014, I heard Joseph Prince share in one of his sermons about a man who had quit smoking. He shared how the man gave up on his self-effort and declared, “God, I cannot but You can,” whenever he had the desire to smoke. I began to do the same.

I gnawed at my fingernails while muttering at my desk during work, “God, I can’t stop biting my nails. Only You can stop this habit.” One day, I ceased to have the desire to bite my fingernails, and have not bitten them for one-and-a-half years now.

Indeed, these habits are not overcome by human willpower or hypnosis. Only God can affect true inner change through grace given to us by Jesus Christ.

God bless you, Joseph Prince, for your ministry of God’s grace throughout the world!