BRIDGES

     I was tired.  I felt like I had given over and above to the busy teenage schedule.  I was feeling selfish and overwhelmed and unappreciated.  I came home and just wanted to be care free for a while.  To not have to figure out another schedule for another day.  I certainly was not up to bridge building.  So when she asked and I questioned, I thought I heard the voice of someone who thought I should be doing more.  I charged in with bombs of truth about respecting your parents, finishing your school, making wise choices with your time.   I threw my self-righteous bomb and retreated to the living room to snuggle up and tune out. 

      How quickly a well placed bomb can undo the foundation of a bridge.  It is far easier to produce a bomb than to engineer a bridge between us.  Bridges require foundations built with  patience, planning and Holy Spirit fruits.  Bombs just require a little truth that agrees with my flesh.  One constructs a path to the soul and mind of another and the other a clanging cymbal in a  noisy explosion.  And in my tired, flesh ruled mind , I chose the easier path.  And now a young mind is tempted to fume and fuss and build her own bombs.  Neither of us have to chose that path, for we can lean and wait and chose grace.  Far better for me would have been  to acknowledge my weariness and ask for reprieve until I could answer with truth and grace together, spanning the gap between.  Bridges can be built without truth , but they will not stand when flesh and flood change our minds and weary our frame.  Bombs can be built with truth or with long simmering bitterness but the end is usually the same.  Destroyed connections, foundations cracked and love distorted.  Sometimes a bomb is necessary when destroying world systems, but not individuals.   And bridges built on truth, though not always traveled upon, are open for one heart and mind to make the journey to another.  It is a place to meet in between the hard and fast  sin scorched shores.

       Jesus bombed the religious system and its people as a whole, throwing truth accurately and precisely at the sinful thinking that stole the heart of His people.  We seldom have such holy motive, clear vision and accurate aim.  But individually in the secret meeting at night, He offered life and forgiveness.  Bridges were his specialty, for he ate supper with people who did not share His truth.  He drove away those who would launch their law bombs at hearts that needed to hear truth kindly spoken and see holy relationship in action.  He spent three years building bridges to hearts that would need to carry on his engineering ministry.   Even when they erred, he spanned the gap with truth built on that relationship he had taken time to forge.  He called  it sowing.   And He chose to build a cross shaped bridge to anyone who would thirst and hunger for  the water and the bread on the other side. 

Acts 17: 23-25

"For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; "   Paul (master bridge builder)

2015