Prayer and fasting... and obedience!!!

During last night's prayer meeting, brother GD talked about fasting... about how God doesn't really care much for fasting..., God would rather us just be on good behavior! Be obedient.

It's interesting that brother GD brought up fasting, it really felt like God was speaking to us thru him. Just a few weeks ago, I fasted... just 3 lunches actually... trying to drive out the 'anger spirit' out of the wife! ;) My motivation was that I remembered Jesus saying sometimes certain evil spirits must be driven out not only with prayer, but also fasting!

So I tried to do the same. Of course, it worked initially, but the anger spirit soon returned last week... mainly because an annoying students parent trying to change schedules again and again with the wife... that's what first pissed wife off..., of course the other reason was me and A-kiang were all too focused on the TV show we were watching at the time wife was on the phone with that parent... well at least A-kiang sort of sympathized with the wife... while I stupidly just told the wife, 'what's the big deal?' Just tell the parent "no" when you just can't do it... or just refund her stupid money! It's just not worth it getting all upset over that stupid parent!!!

But of course my natural reaction caused the wife to be even more upset..., because it made her feel like I don't care for her, don't understand her... and how can I still enjoy some stupid TV show when she's so upset? What the hell is wrong with this stupid husband? Can't he see that I'm upset?!?!?!?

So Satan once again was able to cause a rift between us. Of course having our prearranged dinner with my parents the day after surely didn't help our situation any... OMG, what is wrong with my stupid husband's stupid parents? What is wrong with them?!?!? How dare them say stuffs like that?!?!?

So the rift and the fire simply got bigger and bigger... and quite frankly, I really don't know what to do at the time. Yes, I'm one of the culprits of this spiritual 'fire', but surely I'm not 100% responsible for this fire...

And just as wild fires in CA a few months back..., am I really capable of putting it all off all by myself? If I know how, I would've done it already... so I do what firefighters sometimes do in wildfires, just let it burn until it rains. Yes, in the end, God helped us put it off!

Anyway, yeah, point is that even after combining prayer and fasting together, it doesn't mean it'll solve all problems... because problems are usually caused by our stupid behaviors in the first place!!! If we're all on our good behavior, then none of the bad things would happen in the first place!!!

Of course, moral of the story is not that we ought to just forget about praying and fasting..., moral of the story is that we should just learn to be more obedient to God. To act justly, to love mercy, and to humbly follow Him.

Today's reading was about the period of Judges. Yep, after Joshua, Israelites simply failed to obey God..., and consequently, they lived a pretty messed up life during those times.

Oh God, please not only teach us, but also help us obey Your will... so that Your will can be done thru us. We know that Your will will be done and yes, we rather it be done thru us! Whenever our flesh is weak, please strengthen us... renew our minds and hearts so that we may obey Your every Word. We pray in Jesus' name!