The Watchman Who Can’t Stand Down

Walking Home: A Series for Veterans Carrying Wounds the World Can’t See — Part 2

(All Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation, NLT.)

You know exactly who I’m writing to.

You’re the one with your back to the wall in every restaurant, facing the door. The one who knows where every exit is before you sit down. The one who scans the crowd at your grandchild’s ball game while everyone else watches the game. Fireworks on the Fourth of July put your heart in your throat. A car backfires and your body reacts before your mind can catch up. You haven’t truly relaxed — not all the way down to your bones — in years. Maybe decades.

The clinical word is hypervigilance. But I want to give you a better word for it, a biblical one: you are a watchman who was never relieved of the watch.

I know this one from the inside. There are still rooms I read before I enter them, still days my body stands a post nobody assigned me. I am still learning, even now, to hand the watch over. So nothing here is theory. This is one watchman talking to another.

Trained, Not Broken

Let’s start with a truth the world rarely tells you: your watchfulness is not a character flaw. It is training. It was a skill, and over there, it kept you and your friends alive. You were taught to notice everything, trust nothing, and never, ever let your guard down — because the one moment you did could be the moment everything went wrong.

The problem is not that you learned it. The problem is that the war ended and nobody told your nervous system. The watchfulness that saved you over there is wearing you out over here. A watchman who never gets relieved doesn’t become a better watchman. They become an exhausted one. And exhaustion is exactly where the enemy of your soul wants you — too tired to pray, too tired to hope, too tired to let anyone close.

Scripture says it plainly: “It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones” (Psalm 127:2, NLT). You were never built to stand the watch forever. Nobody is.

A Hunted Man Who Slept

David spent years of his life being hunted. King Saul — with the entire army of Israel at his command — wanted him dead. David slept in caves, in the wilderness, in enemy territory, never knowing which night the spears would come. If anyone ever had a reason for hypervigilance, it was David.

And yet listen to what he wrote during that very season: “I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me. I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies who surround me on every side” (Psalm 3:5–6, NLT).

How does a hunted man sleep? Not because the danger wasn’t real — it was. Not because he stopped posting sentries — he didn’t. David slept because he had learned something every veteran needs to learn: he was not the only one on watch. There was a Watchman over the watchman.

The One Who Has the Watch

If you served, you know the words. When the watch changes, one stands down only because another has formally taken it: “I have the watch.” Nobody abandons a post. The post gets handed over.

That is exactly what God offers you — not the reckless advice to “just relax,” but a relief of the watch by Someone qualified to take it: “He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps” (Psalm 121:3–4, NLT).

Read that again, slowly. He never slumbers. He never sleeps. He never gets distracted, never gets complacent, never misses movement on the perimeter. You have spent years standing a watch that was never yours to stand alone — and the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is saying to you, watchman to watchman: I have the watch.

There’s a moment in 2 Kings that I love. Elisha’s servant woke up to find the city surrounded by an enemy army — horses, chariots, the works. Pure panic. And Elisha prayed one prayer: “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” “The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17, NLT). The threat was real. But the protection was greater — it had been there the whole time. He just couldn’t see it.

Veteran, your eyes were trained to see threats. Ask God to train them to see the chariots of fire, too.

Standing Down, One Watch at a Time

I won’t insult you by pretending this happens overnight. A nervous system trained by war doesn’t retrain in a weekend, and God often does this healing work through people as well — good counselors and doctors are not a lack of faith; they can be part of how He answers prayer. But here is where it begins: with a nightly handoff.

Before you sleep, say it out loud if you have to: “Lord, You have the watch.” Tell Him what you’re scanning for. Name the threats your body is bracing against. That is not weakness — that is exactly what Scripture commands: “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7, NLT).

Did you catch that word? His peace will guard you. The word Paul chose is a military word — a garrison, a sentry posted around your heart and mind. God is not asking you to live unguarded. He is offering you a better Guard.

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (Isaiah 26:3, NLT).

You stood your watch, and you stood it well. But the watch has been relieved. The One who never slumbers is on the wall tonight.

Stand down, watchman. You are guarded.

— Brother Bill

Next in the series: Nightmares and the God of 3 A.M. — when sleep becomes the battlefield, and the God who is already awake when you are.