The Bridge

Over the last few years, my travels for seminary had me traveling around Minneapolis. One main road to drive was Interstate 35W which was the scene of one of the biggest traffic tragedies in the history of American transportation. The scene was the bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in the middle of Minneapolis. It tragically collapsed during rush hour on August 1, 2007. AND YES, I drove over the old bridge before it fell. During the fall of 2008, I had the privilege to drive over the new bridge. In a little over thirteen months the debris was cleared and a new bridge engineered and constructed. It is amazing that in the midst of a tragedy of that proportion, something incredible rose from it. The new bridge is longer and wider, expandable (light rail capabilities), and is state of the art with 323 sensors to monitor the load limits, flex of the structure, and structural integrity. They also had weekly “sidewalk meetings” to update the community and had 1800 elementary students participate in the “casting the future” program which taught them the science of “new concrete” at a mobile classroom right at the bridge site.


So what does a bridge in the middle of Minneapolis have to do with our faith journey? This bridge is a prime analogy for all the “bridges” or relational connections in our lives. We travel daily down the roads of relations within our families, work, and pleasure and with our church family. Some of those relational bridges are strong and properly maintained, others are deteriorating and there are still others on the brink of collapse and we don’t even know it. To take a lesson from the 35W Bridge, we should take inventory of our relationships…through prayer and honest communication, we inspect the integrity of structure of the relationship. If there is damage, we can make the necessary repairs before it crashes (Eph. 4:29-32). If there are broken relationships, we need to clear the debris, and work with God to design a new relational bridge built of forgiveness, grace and love (Col. 4:12-14). And as this work is being done…emulate the new bridge construction by installing sensors such as accountability partners who can speak into your life,get into the bible to be able to see what quality relationships consist of, and continually press into the Holy Spirit as our greatest accountability sensor and contact to the bridge engineer and constructor…GOD.


It is vital for our faith journey to include honest inventories of our relationships and to ensure the work is done to keep us a healthy part of the body...with Christ as the head so we are able to move forward…Sharing the life and love of the Father with each other and with a world that is so desperate for healthy bridges to God!!!

Bridge Verse for this week:
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:29-32