If you had any idea what this Scripture meant–‘I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual’–you wouldn’t be nitpicking like this. Matthew 12:7 (MSG)
Imagine instructing your child that the first thing they should do on waking up is to first make their bed. Now the child wakes up and nature is already calling so the emergency is to rush to the toilet. But then the law is “thou shall make thy bed first” This is what was going on in Israel at the time Jesus came. The Jews had taken the law to the extent that God didn’t care about the welfare of people but all He wanted was that the rules be strictly kept to the letter. Jesus who is the heart of Loving Father God rebuked the Jewish religious law zealots. He told them that the heart intent of God in all the commands He gives us is for our wellbeing and not a rigid cold inflexible lifeless following of orders. Here in this case the disciples did not follow precisely the dietary requirements and they did that on of all days the Sabbath!
It’s not that the least you should always pray every day is an hour but it’s the heart or attitude of prayer that God desires.
It’s good to give but not because you have to or because you have been forced but rather because your heart is in it. It’s our heart and not the ritual that God is after.