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.