July 3 - Isaiah 28-30: Backwards

Today didn't exactly go as planned.  Which was fine, except that I read today's passage this morning and then forgot to blog until now - 9:30pm.  Not my finest hour.  And there was so much in today's reading that I'm having trouble remembering what I wanted to write on the blog.

As I go back through my notes and reading, I see my big underlining of the word "Backward" in chapter 29.  It's funny because that word always reminds me of the alternate form of the word that my dad used whenever we didn't quite get something right and he wanted to let us know that it was "bass-ackwards."  (Anyone else's dad use that idiom, or was it an Oklahoma thing?)

Here's what our Heavenly Father says is backwards:

These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren't in it. (29:13)

In other words, using spiritual talk to cover up that there's really more selfishness than godliness going on in the heart.

...they act like they're worshiping me but don't mean it. (29:13)

 Or, going through the motions of singing, reading, praying, loving, while harboring sin in the heart.

Plotting the future as if you knew everything, acting mysterious, never showing your hand. (29:15)

Another way to say hiding or lacking in transparency and honesty, so that there's no risk of being found out as less than holy.

You treat the potter as a lump of clay.  Does a book say to its author, 'He didn't write a word of me'?  Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it, 'She had nothing to do with this'? (29:16)

This is like what Peterson says about fitting God into our lives, instead of fitting into Him.  God's answer to all of my backwardness is to turn my analytical, logical thinking on its head.

And then before you know it, and without you having anything to do with it... the deaf will hear word-for-word what's been written.  After a lifetime in the dark, the blind will see.  The castoffs of society will be laughing and dancing in God, the down-and-outs shouting praise to the Holy of Israel.  For there'll be no more gangs on the street.  Cynical scoffers will be an extinct species.  Those who never missed a chance to hurt or demean will never be heard of again:  gone the people who corrupted the courts...who cheated the poor...who victimized the innocent.

And finally this, ... No longer ... shame, no longer ... waiting.... In holy worship they'll honor the Holy One of Jacob and stand in holy awe of the God of Israel. (29:12-24)

That's the forward-ness of God.  That's His reality.  That's the reality that requires holiness.