With Respect

I went out today and watered some flowers.
While we may all be different dots across the political/religious landscape, one thing we have in common is respect for our country, and respect for those who have died for our country.
Seek out an assembly tomorrow if you can. 

Getting Church Wrong: Part Two

I'm pretty sure that this series isn't appreciated by all who read it-but here I go anyway.
^"2Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD,
³speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?”
Zechariah  7:2-3
I am careful not to misinterpret Scripture, and I understand the question posed above by the men from Bethel: "Should we still be fasting, keeping the memorial of the fall of Jerusalem, now that Jerusalem and the Temple are being rebuilt?"
God had never ordained the fasts they were asking about, but this post isn't about fasting per se. Look at the LORD's response:
^"4Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying,
⁵“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?
⁶‘When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?"

In my recent post "What Has God Done To Deserve Such Prayers?" I mentioned prayers such as heard at the National Day Of Prayer which may 'namecheck' God, but aren't actually petitions to God but instead are said to be heard by human listeners. I believe I mentioned Christian Pharisees.

It is a spiritual truth that God's people spend more time in the valleys than on the mountaintops.
What I mean by that is that we do not always have wonderful anointed mountaintop joyous experiences every day of our lives. Some would be quick (VERY QUICK!) to suggest that if you
are not seeing spiritual highs, you must have hidden sins that have shut off your access to God for a season to teach you to repent.
The 'proof text for such an assumption is Psalm 66:18 
"¹⁸  If I regard wickedness in my heart,     The Lord will not hear;"

It's never a good idea to build a theology out of one text. A Christian Pharisee might point to a brother hurting and bound up in troubles and think to himself, "That man is regarding wickedness in his heart; of course the Lord will not hear him!"

This was the same wrongful assumption of Job's friends.
Here is a spiritual truth which bears remembering.
God is interested in heartfelt honest worship, so if you are going to approach God, do so reverently.
Don't set your own fasts.
Don't go through the empty motions of worship if you are going through a spiritual dry spell.
You cannot 'force' a greater spiritual experience by 'priming the pump' with songs and prayers and
reading 3 chapters a day and tithing your lemons and spices and why won't God hear me? I'm doing all the right things!

Yeah. You're doing. You.
I've had my dry spells. I've been at this for over 30 years.
Rather than attempt to bring about spiritual growth by my own efforts, I simply trust that God will lead me through the valleys.
I avoid religion and ritual and human efforts.
I once mentioned to my pastor that if church becomes merely ritual, it would be better to stay home.
He looked at me as if I were from Mars. And I don't mean the candy bar.