Isaiah 29 - what is understanding?

As I work through the schedule that I have for reading through the Bible in a year I have been reading Isaiah. There have been more to confuse me than to enlighten me, to be completely honest. I was reading today out of obligation and not out of anticipation because I haven't been quite following everything that he's been saying. But now I see how there are these nuggets throughout. It seems the Lord heard me as I complained internally about reading through the prophets and answered me this way:


11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” 12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” they will answer, “I don’t know how to read.”

I feel like the person holding the scroll but unable to to read it.


13 The Lord says:

“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is based on merely human rules they have been taught.


This makes more sense to me. I see this in our world all over the place. People who are "Sunday Christians". I don't want to be this person that is there physically, but with a heart far away - merely following tradition.


14 Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”


Reminds me of the sermons we had about God's wisdom and man's wisdom being different. I don't want to be wise in my own eyes, but relying on the Lord's wisdom. How do you do that?


15 Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
“Who sees us? Who will know?”

Is this partially the test of knowing if things are God's wisdom or man's? If we do things and try to hide them from God, try to do them in secret, it's not God's wisdom.


16 You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,
“You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter,
“You know nothing”?

Here's another way. If we're trying to tell God what we should be and what will happen, that's us leaning on our own understanding. He is sovereign over us, I pray for deeper understanding of that and releasing control.

"Love your neighbor as yourself" Galatians 5:14

Paul is talking to the Galatians about giving up trying to live by the law. The law is summarized by "Love your neighbor as yourself". We are free of the law, it's this one thing we must do. Sounds so easy, doesn't it? How do I really keep this command? Professionally I have been struggling with how to be a good broker. I started trying to be the broker that I wanted, but I'm realizing now that what I want isn't what all agents want and so now I'm trying to be the broker that they need, rather than what I need. Is this similar to "Love your neighbor as yourself"? Is part of that to not give them what my needs are - but to try to put myself in their shoes and ascertain what their needs are? What does it really mean to love your neighbor as yourself?

One thing that I know that it means is to keep from harming others. In verse 15 Paul says "If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." Using others for your own gain, gossiping, putting others down so that you look more important in your own eyes - it's so easy for us to "look out for #1" that we don't think through how our actions affect others.

Paul talks in 19-26 about the acts of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit. One of the acts of the flesh is selfish ambition. Loving your neighbor starts with looking outside yourself.

Today my prayer is that the Lord gives me sensitivity to areas where I am thinking only of myself and help me to love others.