“Drive On” by Johnny Cash
— Friday, February 17th, 2012 —
This week on “The Cross and the Jukebox” we’ll take a look at a song by Johnny Cash called “Drive On.” The song itself is about a soldier who has returned from the Vietnam war, thinking about the friend he lost in battle, but more than that, about the mentality drilled into soldiers about how to grapple with death in the battlefield. “Drive on,” they are told, “It don’t mean a thing.”
At a tactical level, this makes sense. You can’t stop and grieve in the midst of battle or else you’ll end up killed too. But at another level, you can’t just drive on. You can’t just sear over the pain.
More than that, though, in this episode of “The Cross and the Jukebox” we’ll talk about how this same mentality can crop up in Christian ministry or parenting, when we see those we love wrecking their lives or falling into apostasy or immorality. We’ll see how there’s a pull toward a callousness. This callousness tells us to drive on, that it “don’t mean a thing.”
The Gospel, though, tells us it does mean a thing. And in this episode we’ll think about what it means to be a Christian in the midst of warfare.
Dr. Moore thank you so much for your insight on this song and the way you intersected it with spiritual warfare and fallout from the destruction of fallen lives helped me. I have been in the ministry twenty-three years and have seen much of what you described. I recently noticed that I had been growing callous from all I have seen. I knew it was happening and had been fighting it. The fact that you recognize this callousness that we can develop has helped me.
By the way, I am an Eric Church fan too. I told my wife exactly what you said about him in that he is a throwback to the old stuff (Jennings, Cash, Nelson, Haggard and Jr.) I grew up on in Tupelo, Mississippi (yes, I am a Mississippi boy too, just grew up on the other end of the state).
Check out his song Creepin’. I have often thought it reminds me of the automatic thinking and difficult memories that we deal with as Christians. Just a thought. Many blessings to you brother! Keep up the good work.