Dismounting the Swift Horses

Pastor James Cole

It is uh, it's about four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and let me guess. You are, you're sitting there, but your mind is- is already miles down the road. You're compiling lists, you're checking schedules, maybe mentally drafting an email you shouldn't be sending until Monday morning. There is this- this physical tension, this humming in the chest that says, if I stop moving, even for an hour, the whole thin- the whole stack of cards is going to come crashing down. We- we have this deep, quiet panic that our survival depends entirely on our speed. It- it reminds me so much of a moment in the eighth century BC, when the people of Jerusalem were in a total, absolute panic. The Assyrian army, which was the- the brutal superpower of the day, was marching right toward them. And King Hezekiah's court, instead of breathing, instead of looking to God, they did exactly what we do. They scrambled. They loaded up camels with gold and they sent them down to Egypt to buy swift battle horses. They wanted speed. They wanted a quick exit strategy. And that's when the prophet Isaiah showed up with this incredibly counterintuitive message from God. He told them, "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." But the people... they wouldn't hear it. Isaiah records their response, and it's so raw. They said, "No! We will flee upon horses." And God's response to that is almost- it's almost tragic, but so true to life. He tells them, basically, fine, you want to ride swift horses? Then your pursuers will be swift. You see, when we try to outrun our anxiety by saddling up our own version of swift horses--whether that's cramming more work into the weekend, frantic scheduling, or just mindlessly scrolling our phones to numb the noise--we don't actually escape. We just make the chase faster. We turn Saturday's potential rest into this exhausting, breathless extension of the week's dread. We're running, but the anxiety is keeping perfect pace right behind us.

Pastor James Cole

So, how do we actually get off the horse? How do we dismount before Sunday morning gets here? The word Isaiah uses for "returning" is *shuvah* in the Hebrew. And it's- it's not a passive thing. It's not just collapsing onto the couch in a daze because you're too tired to stand. *Shuvah* is an active, deliberate U-turn. It's a conscious decision to stop trying to justify our existence through how much we can produce or how fast we can solve problems. It is- it's looking at the illusion that we are the ones holding our world together and saying, "You know what? I'm not that important. God was running the universe before I got here, and He'll be doing just fine while I take a nap." True rest, Sabbath rest, it starts when we let God run things without our help. So here is a practical way to do that tonight. Let's call it "dismounting." Before you go to bed, I want you to take a plain piece of paper and write down the three biggest anxieties or unfinished projects that are currently spinning in your head. Write them down. Then, physically fold that paper up, put it in a desk drawer, and push that drawer closed. That physical act of closing the drawer is a tangible sign, a boundary, telling your brain, "These belong to God's care tonight. I am stepping down from the throne." And as you close that drawer, let this promise from later in that same chapter of Isaiah sink deep into your bones: "Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you." He is waiting. He isn't demanding. He is waiting to be good to you. Let's quiet our hearts together for a moment. Lord, we- we confess that we love our swift horses. We confess that we trust our own frantic running more than we trust Your quiet strength. Forgive us for trying to carry what only You can hold. Help us tonight to dismount. As we close the drawer on our worries, we hand them over to You. Teach us to sleep, teach us to rest, and prepare us to show up to worship tomorrow empty-handed, ready only to receive what You so freely give. Amen. Go in peace, my friends. I'll see you in the morning.