Burn the Ships

Burn the ships. That seems like an odd topic for a post about Christianity doesn’t it?  Actually, it comes from a newly released song that is out on the radio. The first time that I heard it, I didn’t understand what burning ships had to do with God. But, the more that I listened to the song, the more it made sense in the context of the rest of the song. The concept of burning the ships relates to forgetting our past and moving on with our future.

I don’t know about you, but there are many things in my past that I regret, both before I became a Christian and after I became one. The one thing about our past is that we can’t change it, it’s gone, and we can’t do anything about it. All we can do is learn from what we did and apply those lessons to the rest of our lives to make sure that we do not commit the same mistakes in the future.

I think of all of the people in the Bible that had either a sketchy past, or a downright sinful past, that God still used. People that had committed murder, people that were harlots, and people that were the least respected in the culture of their time. God forgot about their past and was more concerned about their future. The Apostle Paul comes to mind. He approved of the stoning death of Stephen and was the hunter of people of the Way. God met him along the road to Damascus and forever changed his future.

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 3:13-14. There may be things in your past that keep you from moving forward with life, from doing the things that God has called you to do. We need to forget what lies behind because God has - “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” - Psalm 103:12.

Don’t worry about your past, there is nothing you can do to change it and if Satan wants to bring it up, tell him that it has already been nailed to the Cross. Forget what lies behind and keep pushing forward towards the mark.

Have a great day and God bless.