Christian Mission Outreach

Jesus is the world’s longest and shortest bridge to the Father

“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time”

(1 Tim. 2:5-6).

“But…[Jesus], because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them”

(Heb. 7:24-25).

When I arrived for the first time in Lethbridge, Alberta, an enthusiastic taxi  driver proceeded to point out the sights as he drove me to my destination. I had come for the 2002 Dominion Conference at the Miracle Channel… Among other things, the driver proudly pointed out the railway bridge, telling me that it was the world’s longest trestle bridge and that it was even in the Guinness Book of World Records! He was convinced of it. But then someone else said that it was North America’s longest trestle bridge. Was it both or just the longest on this continent? Or neither? If I wanted to know and to quote the truth, I would have to look in the book to find out— otherwise I could be publishing myth or a fable!

HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE

Although the city was on flat land, the terrain was like a slice of bread that had been torn in two and slightly pulled apart. Behind my hotel there was a deep chasm, with the Oldman River flowing through the valley at the base of peculiar hills called coulees that sprang up in these valleys. The famous CPR High Level railway trestle bridge spans from the top of the coulees on one side of the city, across the great chasm, to the mainland on the other side. I was told it is the only railway trestle bridge long enough, high enough, and strong enough to span such a long, deep, dividing chasm. In order to carry the trains safely it has intricate, orderly trestle-work under-girding it like a series of towers, all joined together by the top-piece. Likewise, because of sin, since Adam and Eve, there is a great chasm between mankind and God, and there is only one bridge in the universe long enough, high enough, and secure enough to bridge that gap so that we may be carried safely to the Father and our eternal homeland, reconciled with God.

CALLED TO SERVE CHRIST

Peter said, “make your call and election sure” (2 Pet. 1:10). I am a Christian in whose life “Peter” (the Roman Catholic Church) planted, and “Paul” (other Christian churches) watered, but God has given the growth. Being from a devout, loving, Roman Catholic (RC) background, I was raised to love God from infancy and often prayed to Him; but I was suddenly surprised around 1979 when I began to experience more than a monologue with Him. Like little Samuel, I did not know He could dialogue with us.

One day while dusting my daughter’s room, as I knelt at the foot of her bed crying to the Lord, thinking my life was useless, the Lord came into my life in a new way with noticeable responses. I was a university graduate who had chosen to be a housewife and stay-at-home Mom, but was jaded by the opinions of people around me.

However, the Lord began by revealing to me a threefold calling on my life, not in distinct words but in an understanding. The first was as a housewife and homemaker to feed and care for His sheep, my family, and those He sent to us. (Years later, the Lord told me, “I have called you as a shepherd of sheep.”) Then the other two callings: as my eyes turned to a picture on her wall of the young John the Baptist, I received the understanding that God was calling me as a prophet like John, helping to prepare the way for His next coming, and something to do with Italians.

I found that the Lord was “my glory and the lifter of my head” (Ps. 3:3). I had never thought of my children as being His sheep, so the Lord began to restore dignity to my life. I had not been able to face my childhood teachers because I was not a teacher, a nuclear physicist, or a foreign missionary; but years later I realized that after that day the Lord began to allow me to teach what He was teaching me, sometimes in banner form. Spiritually, I was a nuclear physicist at times, encouraging the nuclear family as the micro version of the body of Christ, which expanded to a church version, national version, and a world-wide macro version of the body of Christ, the family of God—one inside of another. The Lord began to call me as a missionary to Home Missions, and ministry to the nations locally, and in a few small places overseas by mail.

We rarely ever mentioned the word “prophet” at church in those days, but since God was calling me to be one, providentially I found a page in my Missalette that briefly described the function of this office. However, I had to rely on the Lord to teach me what He wanted of me. It was not until about fifteen years later that I met others with that calling today and got some teaching at some conferences. The Lord had shown me that for the Elijah task to which I had been called, that I would not be alone, though. It was like a relay race, but with a few of us little ones all holding the rod together as we ran after Him. I was only “one of many” with that calling. I echo Paul’s words: “But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11-12). What I learned about coming out of spiritual Babylon and its idolatry and immorality the Lord began to teach me. Thanks and glory be to God. I heard nothing about this in Catholic or Protestant churches in the early days.

Raised as a “Catholic of Catholics,” I had always loved God, but we prayed to the saints, too, in those days. I had been told in RC circles that it was Mary plus the saints in heaven who were chosen to bridge the gap with God, the ones to whom we could and should go to in prayer, and that Mary was the longest bridge—the “Mediatrix of all grace” was what RCs called her—and I was told to pray to Jesus through Mary. We were told we could also pray as the Protestants, directly through Jesus. But, then, not only did the Protestants not pray to Mary, but they always pictured the cross of Jesus as the bridge. Also, they praised God as the one from whom all blessings flow. At first, I strongly defended our belief in praying to and through Mary until the Lord Himself began to teach me otherwise in spectacular ways…….