Burn the ships

There is a story from the 1500s about an explorer who reached the shores of the coast of south America. Apparently the trip was quite difficult and was full of peril and near death experiences. What got these explorers through this experience was their personal faith in God, and that he had called them to go and explore and affect the world.

How it must have felt to reach those stable shores after toiling in the ocean! I think of how I feel after being on an airplane how good it feels to be on solid ground, or how it feels to get out of a car after a long road trip. These guys were out at sea for months, and finally reached their destination.

Well, as the story goes, the people's excitement of the destination soon wore off and they began to prod the captain that they should return from where they came. They didn't like the new place, it was too hard, it was too this, or too that. They wanted to go back to where they came from. The captain's reply was quite simple: Burn the ships. We're never going back. We came this far by faith, and we will continue by faith.

That's a real strong statement, but people today could learn some hard lessons from "burn the ships". So many times people work so hard to get to a place in their lives and when they arrive they find that it doesn't meet their expectations, so they want to go back to things being the old way. You cant have both ways, either the Lord led you to this place, or He did not. If He did, HE WILL SUSTAIN YOU! Don't think back or look back at the place you've come from. Charge forward by faith and burn the ships that represent your escape route from your current condition. By faith you can endure and allow the Lord to see you through whatever place you may be in.

BURN THE SHIPS!

matt