I watched You carve streets of gold from sin and gravel; I gave You brokenness- You gave me innocence, and now this road leads to glory

  
So I was thinking [I do that sometimes… or a lot—too much]
       about how God is both precise (with every hair on our heads being numbered and all) and accurate (comes with the all-knowingness I suppose).   

Sometimes in my Chem lab, our results end up being precise but not accurate|| which basically means that we end up having averages that are consistent in relation to each other with the actual values we should have obtained, but not equal to the actual values. 

But God.
He has mastered precision and accuracy. 

Not only does He call the sun to submission, but He calls it in the early morning.
Not only does He form the oceans vast and wide, but He creates the rhythm of their waves to shape the lands.
Not only does He raise a bird to sing its song, but He gives them the wings to carry it.

Everything He does, He does it flawlessly and with purpose in time.

So I always say that Isaiah is my favorite book, but the truth is that I’ve read 40-66 too many times to count, but the first half only one time.  A week or so ago, I started going through it from the beginning. 

When I got to chapter 3, I saw something so familiar that I had to stop there and relish for a second. 

The heading for this chapter in my Bible is Judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.  Isaiah first explains that Judah is subject to judgment because its people have fallen before idols in worship, loved and valued wealth and power before God, and have earlier been deemed a “sinful nation, a people laden with iniquities” who have “forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged”- Isaiah 1:4.  They have turned from Him, put trust in “princes, in mortal men who cannot save” (Psalms 146:3), and aren’t even ashamed by their sin.  They have actively rejected God, and so in turn are rejected by Him.

Chapter 3 is just a list of all the ways God chooses to shame them, to break their pride.  And so accuracy and precision present themselves. 

To the men:
He strips them of their role as strong leaders.  Where power and courage once stood, He replaces with feebleness and fear.  Then He hands that role to the women and children.  “I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them,”- 3:4 and “My people- infants are their oppressors and women rule over them.”- 3:12. 

To the women:
He strips them of their beauty.  He replaces perfume with “rottenness”- 3:24, and the pride they take in their outward appearance with disgust.  He makes their husbands and protectors “fall by the sword… in battle”- 3:25. They are left desolate and desperate for any man to “take away [their] reproach”- 4:1

The first thing I thought after reading that was how precise and accurate the Lord is.  He took the men’s leadership because He knew that’s where they stored all their value.  To give their role to children and women was so great an insult.  He took the women’s beauty and security because He knew that’s where they stored all their value.  To leave them without confidence in their outward appearance and protection from their husbands was how He knew He could finally get their attention because it would hurt the most. 

He just knows us.  Inside and out.  The ways we hide ourselves and things we store our value in.  He knows them all exactly.

The second thing I thought after reading it was: man, I’m really glad Jesus came already. I’m really glad His hands were pierced with the iniquity of man.  

And that is why my heart sings this song of gladness.  He gave me the words and the tune to which I sing it.  It is by Him that I hear the music.