Copper Lantern Lesson Three

How Is Your Foundation?

At rush hour?  You have to be kidding me!  This just doesn’t happen! Phone calls were made to family and friends to make sure that everyone was accounted for, while we watched and waited.  And then the stories came.  There were heroic stories, heart wrenching stories, and deeply personal stories.

For most people, the obvious question was, how did this happen?  Bridges don’t just fall down without some kind of warning.  And then there was the blame game, who is responsible?  Who didn’t follow through?  One headline proclaimed, who can I sue?   Many had the intent of finding the person or group responsible for such a tragedy.

My intent in this “written thought” isn’t to talk about the human tragedy or point the finger of blame, but rather to present a different purpose.

Here’s my thought.  That bridge stood for 40 years, and people trusted their lives on it every day.  To look at that bridge a month ago, a day before the collapse, or even just a few minutes before it fell, one would think there was nothing wrong with it.  The bridge looked solid, strong, and safe.  But once again, we learned that looks can be deceiving. 

We may never know exactly why that bridge fell on that particular day or at that particular moment, seemingly without warning.  However, we have heard that there were warning signs.  Missing bolts, rusted steel, weight of construction materials, and vibrations from 40 years of traffic and passing trains as well as the extremes of Minnesota weather have all been listed as possible contributing factors.  The reality seems to be that it wasn’t just one thing that caused the bridge to fall.  It appears that many forces, working together over a long period of time, weakened the integrity of the structure and caused the bridge to fail, seemingly without warning.

Jesus used a parable in the Gospels about the wise and foolish man.  One built on a solid rock foundation; what he built stood in the face of storms.  The other man built on a foundation of sand; when the storms came, his house fell.  Both of these men were building something that looked good on the outside, and both faced storms.   However, one withstood and one fell.

We look around us and see people who seem to “fall.”  Seemingly out of the blue, they  do something tragic or foolish, and we wonder, what were they thinking?  How could they be so destructive?  What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?  Often it’s not one thing, but like the I-35W Bridge, it’s a combination of things that causes a person to fall.  Many forces working together over a long period of time weaken the integrity of our lives, and suddenly without warning a person falls.   It causes us to wonder, how could that have happened?  My point is this: don’t neglect the integrity of your life.  Don’t neglect the foundation.  Pay attention to the warning signs and deal with them appropriately.  Deal with wrong heart attitudes, hidden sin, unforgiveness, and pride.  Neglecting the devotional side of our lives is as deadly to the integrity of our lives as rust and missing bolts may have been to the I-35W Bridge.

Psalm 139:23, 24 (CEV) Look deep into my heart, God, and find out everything I am thinking.  Don't let me follow evil ways, but lead me in the way that time has proven true.