Probe deeper

"Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD, saying. … 'Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have for so many years?'" (Zechariah 7:2-3)

The Jews were perhaps a bit fed up with the two self-imposed fasts they had observed during their 70 years of exile in Babylon-one in the 10th month to remember the siege of Jerusalem, and one in the fourth month to remember the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. They wanted to know: Do we need to keep doing this?

Or maybe not. Maybe they were fishing for compliments, expecting a pat on the back for their spiritual earnestness in asking the Lord if they should keep up the fasts. Did they expect Him to say, "Oh, I really need to commend you for fasting so diligently for decades"?

Whichever motive it was that prompted the little trip to the house of the Lord that day, we know there was something wrong with it because it garnered them a rebuke from God:

"Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me. Say to all the people of the land and the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh month for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?'" (Verses 4-6)

God would get around to their question about fasting rituals, but not till chapter 8. There was more important business to deal with first: attitude and heart. Warning: There is a tendency for all Christian works to degenerate into empty ritual. God uses the occasion of their question to remind them: I want reality, not ritual (Isaiah 1:11-17; Hosea 6:6).

I love that about God, that He knows how to take our prayers to a deeper level than we had in mind. I remember when I first became a Christian and prayed to win the lottery, promising God 10 percent. An older brother in the Lord took me aside and we had a little chat about motive.