John Piper and Bethlehem Baptist are located close to the bridge that collapsed last year in Minneapolis. The new bridge is open and John Piper reflects on how God is at work.
A Tribute to Flatiron Constructors and Their Maker
Today in Minneapolis the I-35W Bridge opened at 5 AM, one year and 48 days since it collapsed into the Mississippi River at rush hour (6:05 PM) on August 1, 2007. There are more reasons here to give thanks to God than meet the eye.
From the vantage point of one year later we may offer God several kinds of gratitude that were hard to express last year. Without minimizing the massive pain to the families of those who died, consider this.
If the bridge had collapsed at midnight and 13 people had died, the media would have been (rightly) filled with amazement that only 13 people had died, and officials would have been expressing relieved gratitude that the bridge did not collapse at rush hour. For if it had, surely hundreds would have died.
But the fact is, there was heavy traffic on the bridge at 6:05 PM when the bridge went down and still only 13 people died. This is simply astonishing. It could not be said out loud last year because even the pain of 13 lost (and 145 injured) is not to be minimized.
But now it must be said. Whatever reasons God had for not holding up the bridge at rush hour, he was merciful to spare hundreds of lives. For that we should thank him.
A second kind of gratitude should rise for the common grace of God in the rebuilding of the bridge. God gave the employees of Flatiron Constructors astonishing skill to finish this bridge 98 days ahead of schedule.
Read the whole thing here.
