Choosing Rest over Anxiety

In the passage Larry Dove preached on Sunday, Jesus offers us rest by taking his yoke on us. Today we look at another invitation to rest. This one comes from 400 years before Jesus was born. It was an invitation to God’s people to slow their roll, to turn away from their anxiety and turn towards rest (that turning away and turning towards is what ‘repentance’ means).

And yet they couldn’t do it. And not so much as punishment but as the natural consequences of running ourselves ragged, God’s people get beat up even more by the things that were causing them anxiety. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just people back in the day who struggle with this… it’s us.

So read through this passage and let it sink in. How might the Spirit be speaking to you through it? Do you hear a gentle invitation? If so, what might it look like to respond?

In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill. - Isaiah 30:15-17