Tonight, while having a conversation with my mother, I began really thinking along the lines of burning bridges. So many in the church world want to burn bridges with other people and develop “spiritualized” reasons for why they burned the bridge to make it sound good – “They weren’t walking in love with ME!”, “I tried to have relationship with them, but they just did me wrong too many times.”, or my favorite, “God told me …blah, blah.” It seems to be a common and acceptable behavior by many, but I tend to think our biblical example is the exact opposite of this behavior.
While thinking about this topic I began to think about the example given to us through the Scriptures. If we study out the creation story and story of the beginning of man, we have a beautiful picture given to us. We see in the Book of Genesis two beings, God and Adam, which had perfect relationship and right-standing with each other. In this we also see a beautiful story of true love shared between the two and then we see one of those individuals making a decision to burn the bridge. God had poured His heart in Adam, yet Adam willingly took part in disobeying God and in turn, destroying His relationship with God on his end. He was completely at fault; God was completely innocent in the severing of their right-standing with each other. He had every right to be angry and hurt with Adam, every right to never speak to Adam again, every right to walk away from the ashes of a once beautiful relationship. Sounds much like the excuses we humans use in our relationships that have “gone wrong.” However, I see an interesting pattern throughout the scriptures. I see God, who could have easily forgotten the person that broke His heart, continually doing everything He could to try and re-build the bridge between Him and man. First, he threw them out of the Garden, not because he was mad or angry, but because if they remained in the Garden and ate from the Tree of Life, they would eternally be separated from Him, and He needed time to rebuild the bridge. Throughout the Old Testament, we see God making covenant with men and doing everything He can to keep a Holy line through which He could build a new bridge. And then, after thousands of years of working to build a bridge back to humankind, a bridge that He never severed in the first place, we see the final plank laid to allow mankind to be in right-standing with the Father, that plank was Jesus. Not only did He rebuild the bridge, He made it newer and better, one that mankind can’t burn down, one that is always there waiting for us, even when we walk away.
I know that was a quick synopsis of this story of God building the bridge, rather than burning it, but I think it gives a good example of how we, as believers, are to conduct ourselves with others. We are to model ourselves after God, just as He continued to fight to build the bridge back between Him and mankind, we should strive to build bridges back that others may burn, but we should never toss the torch on the bridge, no matter how lost the relationship may seem. And I know, when we get offended and people hurt us, it is so tempting to want to throw gasoline on the bridge and light a match and just watch it burn, but what example of God’s love are we giving? If you are constantly burning bridges with others (family, friends, ministries, churches, etc.) how can you truly say you walk in love? Even when you are completely innocent and have been wrongly treated by the other person, follow the example our heavenly Father gave us!
I am seeing it more clearly everyday that you can't truly be a success and an asset in the Kingdom when you burn bridges, because that is not the Gospel! As we discussed, in Genesis Adam burned the bridge to God, but God kept looking for a way to rebuild the bridge. We are supposed to be like our Father God! God is our example for our relationships with men, so how do we dare think we have the freedom and right to burn bridges and cut people out of our lives because they hurt us? We are called to live our lives by the example given to us in the scriptures.
I, for one, choose to endeavor to BUILD bridges and yes, I am fully aware that it will take hard work and pain, but nothing worth keeping is easy. People, both unbelievers and believers, are WORTH the price of hard work and effort to show love to and maintain relationship with, at least Jesus thought so when he shed His blood. So set down your pride, and pick up a hammer and get to work. If you can’t love your brother beside you, how could you ever truly love God?
I leave you with this one question,
Are you a Bridge-BUILDER or a Bridge-BURNER????
Faithfully His,
JRT
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