I was kept awake for at least half an hour or more because a sudden realization hit me. It sort of started when I remembered the extremely clichéd saying, "Cry a river, build a bridge, then get over it." I saw it somewhere once and I never forgot it since.
In the past, this is how I'd picture it.
First of all, when faced with a setback that's not easy overcoming and you really cannot take it anymore, you cry. Like heartbreak lah. Once you're done feeling sad and sorry for yourself, you stand back up on your feet again and recover! You recuperate! That's awesome. You've built that 'bridge' for yourself. Then you just need to muster whatever courage you've got to get over that bridge and you've finally and successfully left behind whatever reasons you used to have to feel down. Easy, ain't it? (:
Of course, as time passed by I also came to know that all that is easier said than done lah but that's not the point.
Last night, an entirely different image came to mind and I was sort of slightly surprised at it. This was what I pictured:
When faced with similar problems like heartbreak and whatnot, we cry, be it at the altar or by ourselves.
But once we're done crying, what's next? We Christians would then, I assume, look towards the Cross. We seek guidance, truth and wisdom in God's Word/talking to our leaders in church/in prayer. After crying a river we stop to look up and see a bridge built across our tears. The bridge is already there for us to take that step of faith to cross over. And right there and then, I could picture God standing over at the other side of the bridge saying, "My child, come to me. Come to me."
I believe that many of us, young Christians especially, sometimes 1) get too emotional and caught up in crying that we don't acknowledge the way out (the bridge) that God has provided for our problems, and/or 2) we just won't 'get over' that bridge.
Just last night the phrase, "get over it" was repeatedly running through my head.
Sometimes we just feel so obstructed whenever we deal with problems like these. We find it so hard to 'get over it'.
But last night it dawned upon me that if we cannot get over these bridges then we definitely won't be able to come closer to God. That same bridge will forever be standing in between you and God. Like that how to grow in God?
Earlier this evening I had a talk with Shuenjin and I told him all the above.
I told him that there were also different kinds of bridges that we got to overcome. Some bridges are made of concrete and stone and will never collapse in ten thousand years. For the less fortunate we may be presented with precarious-looking bridges that would seem to collapse under your very feet.
Then Shuenjin brought up a good point: What if we fall, won't we drown in our own tears?
I thought about it for a while and then I was reminded of the story of Jesus walking on water in the book of Matthew.
Jesus appeared before his disciples while they were out to sea in the middle of a storm. Jesus was walking on water and his disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. One of them, Peter, said, "Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water." So Jesus invites Peter to come. Peter gets out of the boat and begins walking on the water toward Jesus, but when Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and sees the wind and waves, he begins to sink.
Like what Marc had mentioned last year during combined cell, sometimes we let the devil make use of our fears to instill even greater fear in us that we take our eyes off Jesus, like what Peter did. And then we sink, or in the bridge analogy, we fall from the bridge and land in our tears. We might even just find ourselves back at square one.
I was rather enlightened as all that came rushing through my mind last night.
Bottom-line: Just as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus/God, we will definitely overcome the bridges in our lives. I believe that just as long as we have faith, we won't fall back to square one because God just isn't that sadistic. He won't tell you to come to Him and then let you fall, will he? Yet I reflect on my own life last night and I can see several aspects in my life that God would probably scream, "GET OVER IT!" at.
But God doesn't do that. He just patiently waits at the other side of the bridge because it has to be our own individual effort in order to overcome challenges in life. And even though many times I've failed Him by choosing to stay at my own side of the bridge, or even by losing sight of Jesus along the way, God still remains faithful. He still waits. Even when I backslided for a year and a half, God still waited.
Sometimes I just cannot help but marvel at the vastness of His mercy and grace.
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