I’ll just leave this here…it hit way to close to home.

Isaiah 58:2-4, “They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people – law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask Me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ and love having Me on their side. (3) But they also complain, ‘Why do we fast and You don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and You don’t even notice?’ …(4) You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. …The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground.” The Message

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“In Isaiah 58:1-4, the prophet most likely described the situation in Jerusalem soon after the exiles returned…Not only did the community have to reclaim the land for farming and reconstruct the city; they had to rebuild all their economic institutions from the ground up. …religious devotion had become a substitute for ethical behavior. …No matter how properly ‘religious’ their behavior was, it did not address the real need of the community: the need to share the scarce resources that were available to the returnees. …did not see the necessity of relating their religious devotion to their social and economic practice. God thought that they should.” Chronological Study Bible Notes

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“Prayers are not wishes; prayers are conversations. God does not grant but God gives, God is not summoned, but God speaks. …There is no one right way to speak to God, no guarantee of answers or outcomes, but the words themselves will take on life as they leave your lips, they will find their way to Jesus, they will be heard.” “Forgiving God,” Hilary Yancey in “You + Hard Thing = Not Talking to God (or the Silence Where God Speaks),” Ann Voskamp

(Note to self: Things to overcome – complaining and bickering. Enough said.)

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