Bridges have been in the news lately, and if you live anywhere near Steubenville, you may have run into trouble with our bridges here. The Market Street Bridge has been closed indefinitely, and the Veterans Memorial Bridge has been under construction off and on, which has backed traffic up several times over the last few weeks.
According to Google, the purpose of a bridge is to “provide efficient routes over obstacles such as rivers, lakes, valleys, and cliffs.” Metaphorically speaking, life is full of those obstacles. Emotions flood us like rivers. We become stagnant in some parts of life like a lake. We go low in the valleys of life and have to climb our way out of them. Occasionally, we even find ourselves on the edge of a cliff, wondering where can we go from here?
If you’re anything like me, you can relate to the highs and lows of life in such a way. Even through such circumstances though, God provides a bridge for us. In Mark 4, we read about Jesus, who was sleeping in the bottom of the boat, when a storm hit. On the outer surface, the disciples were freaking out, so much so that they woke Jesus up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?’
When Jesus woke up, He rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Silence! Be still!’ Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then He asked them, ‘Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?’
The disciples were absolutely terrified. ‘Who is this man?’ they asked each other. ‘Even the wind and waves obey Him!” (Mark 4:38-41).
This passage shows us that when we personally know God, things will still feel shaky and scary as we experience the storms of life; however, when they do feel so, we know that He is in control of all things and the calm will come. God, out of love for us, has provided a bridge through His Son, Jesus Christ, for us to come to Him.
Satan’s plan in betraying Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was to defy and defeat God. However, God gave the first curse of Adam and Eve’s decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to the serpent. He said, “Because you have done this, you are more cursed than any livestock... You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed [Jesus]. He [Jesus] will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:14-15). Right there, in the very first book of the Bible, we can see that Jesus wins.
Friends, I don’t know about you, but I want to be on the winning team. Joseph told his brothers, “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result – the survival of many people” (Genesis 50:20). In the same, the evil that was and is planned against us in this life can not prevail over what God has planned for our lives. God has offered a way. He's already bridged the gap. Now we must humble ourselves at the foot of the cross and trust the bridge that He has provided through Jesus’ death. If you haven’t yet put your faith in Christ, let’s chat! I’d be truly honored to help answer any questions, and if I don’t have the answers, direct you to someone who does. Have a great week, my friends! Praying we find beauty in the storms this week.