Crossing France recently, I was struck by those construction sites that dot our motorways. Sometimes, in the distance, you see a bridge rising up, alone, in the middle of nowhere. No road leading to it. No road leaving it. Just a suspended structure, apparently absurd.
And yet, this work is not absurd at all. We are simply arriving too soon. Only the engineers who designed the route know how this isolated bridge will soon connect valleys and bring people closer together. What seems disconnected to us is already connected in their plan.
Our lives resemble these construction sites. Trials rise before us like isolated bridges. Why this illness? Why this closed door? In the moment, nothing fits together. But God is the Architect. He sees the whole route when we see only a section.
The prophet Isaiah says it with the simplicity of what we end up forgetting:
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:9 (ESV)
And here is the deepest mystery: the Architect Himself became the Bridge.
Between heaven and earth there was a chasm no human could cross. So Christ stood up, arms stretched out on the wood, connecting God to humanity.
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV)
The One who drew the plan of your life is also the One who became the way for you.
When you do not understand the route, remember the Bridge. It holds. It leads somewhere. It leads to the Father.