So I’ve heard this song before..it’s For King and Country’s Burn The Ships. I know I’ve heard it before several times in fact. However, I’m guilty of hearing a song and not really listening to it. I don’t know if I tune out or what but I do it a lot. I also am guilty of being a bit ‘judgy’ of Christian music. Ok… maybe not a little bit, a lot of bit judgy. In fact, I used to absolutely hate Zach Williams Chain Breaker which hit in 2016 and was absolutely everywhere forever. In fact, it still is. I think a lot of my problem was that it was played over and over and over again but unfortunately that was not everything. Again.. I used to be really really really judgy of most christian songs.
Whatever the reason, I heard this song with new ears today. Go ahead, look it up and play this song now. You can wait to read further or if you’re a multi tasker like me you can do both. But please don’t be like me and tune it out.. really listen.
Music is so beautiful isn’t it? I absolutely love how it can speak to you in such simple little ways and really strike each and every one of us differently. I love the imagery here…burn the ships. Most of you are probably aware of what this metaphor means but maybe some of you aren’t and have never heard this before. It comes from the explorer Cortes who when he reached the New World he apparently burned all of his ships so his men couldn’t sail back and were forced to commit to their expedition. Pretty drastic right? There was no choice, he took every possiblity away and forced them to commit. Good or bad in the moment I don’t know and I am certainly not trying to promote or even debate his decison, I simply want to rest in the imagery here and what this truly means for me…for us.
Step into a new day. We can rise up from the dust and walk away. We can dance upon the heartache. So light a match, leave the past, burn the ships and don’t you look back.
That’s the chorus. So much of this song resonates and again, please go ahead and listen to it if you haven’t already…or listen to it again:) I think at this point we have to think about, why does this resonate so much? Or at least I do. I think when we’re healing or getting over or just trying to get through life after a past trauma the temptation is to gravitate back toward the pain, the hurt. Logically it makes no sense, but emotionally…well, we all know emotions don’t think logically. So many times I’ve told myself I need to move forward, I need to think about other things, I need to keep myself busy, I need to… (insert whatever you tell yourself) but it never works. I don’t know about you but when I’m in that emotional moment I can’t logically pull myself out of it. That’s why a chorus like this is so important. At a certain point in your healing there will be a time for choosing. Probably not when you’re in that emotional moment but when you’re thinking a little more clearly you realize you have to make the choice. You have to burn the ships. You have to take away whatever is dragging you back into that emotional pit. You’ve made this choice to push forward, own it and don’t look back.
So many times I get these mental images pop into my head or random thoughts. Some of them happened, some of them may or may not have happened and some of them never happened. But they pop in randomly just the same and I can’t control it. It used to be that it would knock me down into that pit and I was done. But when I hear a song like this I’m reminded that this is a new day and I can step into it. I’m not sure if I can dance upon the heartache yet.. but I can rise up from the dust and walk away and I can’t look back.
So play the song again and think about what it really means to you. I know right now I can’t get enough of it. Save it to your playlist and when it looks like you’re about to get hit again play it. Remind yourself that you’re stepping into a new day.
