View our weekly devotional archives.

September 22, 2008 - Building Bridges

During the past several years, Outdoor Connection Ministries (a.k.a Men’s Ministry Catalyst) has been in the business of helping churches recognize the importance of building “bridges” to their communities.  We see these communication bridges as a practical way for believers to share Christ’s love with a lost world. 

The book entitled The Church of Irresistible Influence by Robert Lewis is filled with great principles about how to create an effective church.  He uses bridges as metaphors to help the reader better understand the importance of connecting to community.    The following is a paraphrase on one of Lewis’s bridge stories that I use to talk about the importance of prayer.

Newspapers called it the “Dance of Danger” – bridge construction on top of swaying catwalks and high towers, sometimes hundreds of feet in the air, blown by ill winds.  This dance had even yielded a calculated fatality rate:  For each one million dollars spent, one life would be lost.  That was what one could expect.

Engineers of the Golden Gate Bridge; however, believed the risks could be lowered.  In 1932, when construction began, numerous safety measures were put into place and strictly enforced: mandatory use of hard hats, prescription filtered eye glasses, no showboating (cause for automatic-firing), tie-off lines, and an on-site hospital, all helped to greatly reduced the casualty rate. After nearly four years of construction and $20 million spent, only one worker had died.

The most effective safety device, without question, was as new to bridge building, as it was old to the circus:  the use of a trapeze net.  Costing $130,000, this large net draped sixty feet below the roadbed under construction, extending ten feet to either side.  So effective was the safety net that the newspapers began running box scores: “Score on the Gate Bridge Safety Net to Date: 8 Lives Saved!”  Those men whose lives had been delivered by the net were said to have joined the “Halfway to Hell Club.”

Beyond that, the net had another significant benefit:  it freed many of the workers from an often-paralyzing sense of fear.  And that, many said, helped them work more productively.

What fear is paralyzing to you this day?  Is it the fear of financial collapse?  Is it the fear of hearing about a potentially unfavorable medical report?  Is it the fear of a broken relationship?  Or maybe you are afraid about the uncertainty that tomorrow brings?  Whatever your concerns we have a loving, caring God who knows your heart and desires to comfort you in all your fears. 

When I’m fearful my safety net is the comfort of God’s presence felt through prayer and the assurance of His word.

Think about this:

• “Take courage! It is I (Jesus) Don’t be afraid.” Matt.6:50
• “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?” Heb. 13:6
• “There is no fear in love.  But perfect loves drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love” 1 John 4:18
• “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” 2 Tim. 1:7