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WALKING IN SALVATION

There are times when the Lord does not call us to move forward but to return. When the noise of our striving grows deafening, when the heart beats out of rhythm with peace, when our efforts leave us weary but not whole—it is then that His voice, ancient and tender, calls us back:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. But you were not willing.” — Isaiah 30:15

Exhaustion is not the problem; it’s the warning light on the dashboard of our lives. And if we ignore it we will miss the wholeness and peace we are longing for. The Hebrew word for peace (shalom) is based on the Hebrew word for wholeness (shalam), you can’t have one without the other.

If you feel broken and rest-less this message is for you.

BUILDING OUR OWN TOWERS OF BABEL

In every generation—and in every heart—the Tower of Babel rises again. It is not made of brick and tar but of self-salvation projects. Each time we say, “I will fix this myself,” or “I can outrun this,” we begin stacking another level upon the same doomed tower that once tried to reach heaven (the peace and wholeness we long for) without God.

Matthew Henry remarks that this was an attempt to shield themselves from danger by their own contrivance—an earthly plaster for a heavenly wound. Rashi comments similarly that Israel “added sin upon sin” by seeking protection in Egypt instead of returning to their Protector.

We, too, are tempted to build our modern towers of Babel—careers, relationships, even ministries—upon the foundation of anxiety and self-effort. We over-engineer, overthink, overwork, believing that the higher we climb, the safer we’ll be. But these towers always crumble because they are erected upon fear, not faith.

Fear is faith in reverse. While fear imagines and magnifies the worst possible future and runs from it, faith based on the good promises of God, magnifies and imagines the best.

The moment we stop striving to reach heaven and instead let heaven reach us, the building halts, and rest begins.

To “return and rest” (Isa. 30:15) is to dismantle every inner scaffolding of self-reliance—to let the stones of your Babel fall one by one until you stand again on holy ground.

THE CROSS: THE ALIGNMENT OF EARTH AND HEAVEN

The Cross is not merely a symbol of suffering—it is the geometry of divine alignment. The horisontal beam represents our earthly existence: our relationships, labours, decisions, and desires stretched across the landscape of time. The vertical beam represents our connection with God—the unseen axis that grounds us in eternity and anchors us to heaven.

When these two meet, the intersection becomes the place of redemption. That meeting point is where our striving ends, and divine strength begins. We can attempt to carry the cross-beam ourselves, dragging the weight of our own burdens, or we can allow Jesus—the embodiment of the vertical—to bear it through us.

To “return and rest” is to realign the two beams—to stop carrying life in isolation from heaven. When the vertical supports the horisontal, life finds balance; when the horisontal is cut off from the vertical, everything collapses under its own weight.

Matthew Henry wrote,

“By quiet submission to the will of God [returning and resting] they would find rest to their souls; but being proud and willful, they hurried away from their Help.”

Likewise, Rashi’s commentary reminds us that true strength comes not from rebellion or flight, but from emunah—trust that the One who carried the Cross still carries us. At the foot of the cross the ground is even. Here there is no preferential treatment. there are no good people or bad people, only people relying on what was accomplished by our Lord’s sacrifice to reconcile us to heaven.

THE CONTEXT: MISPLACED TRUST

Isaiah 30 opens with a lament. The people of Judah were looking to Egypt for protection against Assyria—forming man-made alliances and solutions—instead of trusting the God who had delivered them from Egypt in the first place.

“Woe to the rebellious children,” says the Lord,
“who take counsel, but not of Me;
who devise plans, but not of My Spirit,
that they may add sin to sin.” —Isaiah 30:1

The word “sin” here means “missing the point.” What we call problems are just symptoms of the original schism we created when we walked away from God in Genesis 3 to do things “our way.” And what is our way? Man’s way is to take control, find man-mad solutions and save yourself, and it’s all based on a fundamental distrust that God has our best interest at heart (Read Gen. 3 for yourself). Matthew Henry points out that their sin was not merely disobedience, but distrust—a disbelief in the sufficiency of divine guidance. He writes:

“They take counsel, but not of God, as if they were wiser than He, and could better provide for their own safety.”

How familiar that sounds. We too consult the “Egypts” of our day—our own logic, networks, self-preserving strategies—thinking perhaps, this will keep me safe. But Isaiah warns that such alliances only deepen our bondage. The very horses they trust to deliver them become the instruments of their flight.

Who’s report will you believe?

Isaiah 53:1

“You said, No, for we will flee on horses! Therefore you shall flee.” —Isaiah 30:16

Rashi, commenting on this verse, paints the picture vividly:

“You thought that by speed of horses you would escape your pursuers, but that same swiftness will serve your destruction; for those who chase you shall be swifter still.”

In other words, the harder you run from fear, the faster fear runs after you. In this scenario you are always on the back foot, never at peace, and never where you actually want to be. But God’s testimonies are reliable counselors:

“Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors.” —Psalm 119:24

THE TURNING POINT: GOD’S LONGING

Yet amid this rebuke, the tone shifts with divine tenderness:

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for Him.” —”Isaiah 30:18

Matthew Henry notes:

“Their strength is to sit still, in a humble dependence upon God and his goodness and a quiet submission to his will, and not to wander about and put themselves to great trouble to seek help from this and the other creature. “If we sit still in a day of distress, hoping and quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord, and using only lawful regular methods for our own preservation, this will be the strength of our souls both for services and sufferings, and it will engage divine strength for us. We weaken ourselves and provoke God to withdraw from us when we make flesh our arm, for then our hearts depart from the Lord. When we have tired ourselves by seeking for help from creatures, we shall find it the best way of recruiting ourselves to repose in the Creator. Here I am; let him do with me as he pleases.”

This is not the the posture of an offended monarch but the patience of a Father longing for reconciliation. The Hebrew carries this sense of eager expectancy—as though God Himself is watching the horizon, like the father in Jesus’ parable, waiting for the prodigal to appear in the distance.

Rashi interprets this verse as,

“The Holy One, blessed be He, longs to bestow kindness, but waits for you to turn so that His compassion may rest upon you.”

It is not that God is far—it is that our hearts are elsewhere. We have mistaken movement for progress and busyness for faith. We have run from danger but not toward the Lord.

This is how we forfeit our own salvation in time of need.

THE FALSE ENERGY OF FLIGHT

If you feel like you’re running on a treadmill—exhausted, anxious, spiritually breathless—it is because you are fleeing from something instead of returning to Someone. The Lord’s prescription for safety is paradoxical:

“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and trust shall be your strength.”

To stop striving is not laziness; it is faith. To rest is not resignation; it is warfare of a higher kind.

Psalm 46 echoes it:

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

And Hebrews 4 deepens it:

“For we who have believed enter that rest.”

That is, rest here is an active deliberate spiritual practice as statement of confidence in our Heavenly Father. Faith sits down not because it has capitulated but because it trusts in the intrinsic goodness of our loving Father that has already prepared the way.

“Sit at My right hand,” He says, “until I make Your enemies Your footstool.” —Psalm 110:1

Sitting, not trying harder, is a statement of faith. To rest, then, is not to do nothing—it is to abide in the One who has done everything. Panic, fear, and worry are all symptoms of child of heaven with their eyes on the problem, not the solution.

WHOSE REPORT WILL YOU BELIEVE?

Isaiah’s audience faced the same dilemma we face today: which voice will you trust? The report of your fear, or the report of the Lord?

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved,
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength;
but you were not willing.”

And yet the chapter ends not with despair but with a promise of renewal:

“Then the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold.” —Isaiah 30:26

When we return, light multiplies. What was dim becomes radiant. What was narrow becomes spacious.

Repentance is not regression—it is reorientation. It is turning homeward, into the open arms of salvation.

THEOLOGICAL APPENDIX

שׁוּב (Shuv) — TO RETURN, TO REPENT

Transliteration: shuv
Root letters: ש (shin) – ו (vav) – ב (bet)
Core meaning: to turn back, to restore, to come home.

In Hebrew thought, repentance is not primarily sorrow—it is directional. It means to turn from self-salvation to the salvation of the Father. Every human heart carries an internal compass, a divine homing signal—a GPS (God Positioning System). It manifests as longing for peace, joy, safety, belonging—but in its purest essence, it is the pull toward home. That is the true moniker of the feeling inside us.

When we follow that call, we not only find provision but rediscover the Father’s love. Shuv is movement—the turning of a soul realising it has walked the wrong road and now pivots back toward the Source.

Jesus illustrated this in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). The son who thought freedom was found in “the glitter and partying” of the far country ended in bankruptcy—spiritually, emotionally, physically. When he “came to himself,” he returned. And in returning, he found both restoration and embrace.

“Came to himself” is a description of spiritual consciousness, and it happened when he began focusing on the Father. That means, that whatever we focus on will determine our level of consciousness. Either we focus on the problems and threats that make us physically conscious and put us in survival mode like animals, or we focus on God and His promises that allow us to ascend in consciousness and therefor transcend the so-called challenges we think we face. The so-called problem is never the problem, the challenge is always to stay conscious.

Our self-inflicted wounds—our Adamic exile—can only be healed by coming back home. God is not angry; He is longing to be gracious.

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
therefore He rises to show you compassion.” —Isaiah 30:18

You are not waiting for God to come to you—He is waiting for you to come back to Him.

“By repentance [returning] and rest you would be saved;
your strength would lie in quiet confidence—
but you were not willing.” —Isaiah 30:15

If you feel like you are running but never arriving, exhausted in every dimension—it may be because you are fleeing danger, but not returning to the Lord. Salvation begins by sitting still and trusting that the Father has already secured the outcome.

In prophetic writings, shuv carries covenantal gravity:

“Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.” —Hosea 14:1

To repent is to reorient your being toward divine alignment—not moral correction, but ontological restoration.

Etymologically, teshuvah (תְשׁוּבָה)—“repentance”—means “a returning answer.” When you repent, you “answer back” to God’s invitation to come home. And importantly, it’s not what we say that matters, but what we do i.e. practice waiting on God in prayer as a spiritual practice or not.

יָשַׂע (Yasha) — TO SAVE, TO DELIVER

Transliteration: yasha
Root letters: י (yod) – ש (shin) – ע (ayin)
Core meaning: to be spacious, to bring into safety, to make room.

From yasha we derive Yeshua (יֵשׁוּע)—Jesus—the embodiment of salvation. The ancient pictographic sense conveys “to make wide” or “to create space.”

Salvation, then, is not merely escape from peril but expansion into liberty.

“He brought me out into a broad place;
He rescued me.” —Psalm 18:19

Crucially, “space to breath” is what everyone is trying to carve our of the chaos and dysfunction in the world. Here we are reminded that the space we long for is not “grabbed” but “gifted.” Thus, salvation is not an exit strategy—it is entrance into wholeness.

If shuv is the motion of turning, yasha is the divine outcome of that motion. They are two halves of one sacred movement: repentance and rescue.

INTERPLAY: SHUV AND YASHA

Repentance (shuv) is the human response; salvation (yasha) is the divine reaction:
→ You turn—and He saves.
→ You draw near—and He makes room.

This is the covenant rhythm of grace.

“Return and you will be saved.”

And we return by resting in faith in the fulfilled promises of God. You cannot save yourself apart from God, but you can position yourself to be saved by Him.

GREEK CONNECTION — Σόζω (Sōzō)

In the Septuagint, yasha is rendered sōzō—to heal, preserve, make whole.
This is the same word Jesus used when He said:

“Your faith has made you whole [sozo].” —Mark 10:52

Salvation (sōtēria) is wholeness restored through faith’s return to the Source. We all believe in something. That it will save us, “if we could only just...”, but this is the broken, misplaced and self defeating “faith” in self.

THE MYSTERY OF RETURN AND REST

Isaiah’s words combine both roots in a single breath:

“In returning [shuvah] and rest you shall be saved (tivashēʿun, from yasha).” —Isaiah 30:15

The path to safety is not outward striving but inward stillness. To save yourself is not to rescue yourself—it is to return to the One who rescues.

And never forget,

“The devil’s business is busyness!”

And now you know why: I he can keep you in survival mode, you will never experience the full extent of what the Father has prepared for those who love—that is, choose—Him.

Finally, if you don’t remember anything remember this: the effort is not in saving yourself, but in turning back to the saviour. You have built up mental and emotional momentum and that is what feel like resistance when you begin “turning the ship around.”

DEVOTIONAL PRAYER

Loving Father of mercy and rest, I turn from my endless striving and return to You. Teach me the stillness that saves—the quiet trust that knows You are enough. When my heart runs to “Egypt,” bring me home. When fear makes me flee, remind me that salvation is found in stillness, not in speed. You are my spacious place, my refuge, my restoration. In You I find rest for my soul. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. What are the modern “Egypts” I tend to trust instead of God?
2. How does the idea of repentance as “returning home” reshape my understanding of faith?
3. In what areas of life is God asking me to stop striving and start resting?
4. What does “quiet confidence” look like in my daily choices?
5. How can I actively cultivate the stillness that allows God’s salvation to manifest?