Photo ©2008 and Commentary ©2025 by Chuck Davis
Monday, January 5, 2026
The image for today’s photo parable displays a rustic bridge crossing Bear Creek. on the Bare Mountain Trail. The summit of Bare Mountain protects the remnants of a long-removed Forest Service Fire Lookout. The history of the area below Bare Mountain and the head of Bear Creek is rooted in early Washington State mining, with a series of mines known as the Bear Basin Mines. The mining efforts focused on a polymetallic vein deposit offering gold, silver, copper, and zinc. The bridge in today’s photo was originally built and maintained as a valuable connection to the minerals that lay hidden in the backcountry and are now located within the area known as the Alpine Lakes wilderness.
In the Bible, bridges are used metaphorically to represent the need for building and maintaining connections between God and humankind. Ultimately, God sent his Son, Jesus to build/become the bridge that reconnects us to God’s original plan for us. “A highway will be there, a roadway, And it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, But it will be for him who walks that way, And fools will not wander on it” (Isaiah 35:8 NASB).
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’ (Luke 16:26, KJV).
A skeptic might read these verses and lose heart, thinking that the gulf is too wide, the bridge is too narrow, but Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6 NIV). When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Just as the men who built a bridge over Bear Creek to get to the valuable minerals of the Bear Basin Mines, God, desiring to reach his most valued possessions, His sons, and daughters, built a bridge to provide a way. May the next bridge you cross remind you of Jesus, the bridge that connects humanity to eternity.