Building Bridges

“8 Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.” (Psalm 25:8-9 NIV).

The Living Bible paraphrases these two verses, “The Lord is good and glad to teach the proper path to all who go astray; He will teach the ways that are right and best to those who humbly turn to Him.”

We do serve a good God! He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9b NKJV). To this end He graciously and gladly reaches out His loving hands not to push sinners over the precipice, but to rescue them and guide them back in the way they should go. We who call ourselves by His Name should follow that example.

Will Allen Dromgoole wrote a wonderful poem entitled The Bridge Builder:

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and grey
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim --
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned when he reached the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting strength in building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old grey head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must past this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair haired youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

May I ask you who you are building bridges for today? It may be a son or daughter or perhaps a grandson or granddaughter you are building for. It may be a lost friend or relative; a father or mother. Understand that God’s desire is for their salvation, He reaches out to guide them not to push them to destruction. But understand this: the hands He uses to reach out is you and me. It is a frightening reality for me to realize that since I call myself a Christian, everything I do, everything I say, how I act and react either draws people to the Savior or drives them from the Savior.