DANCING
WITH DANGER

Topics: Assurance; Danger; Fear; Hell; Protection; Safety; Security in God; Seen and Unseen; Trust

References: Ezra 9:8–9; Psalm 91; 118; Luke 4:9–11

The construction of the Golden Gate Bridge was so risky that newspaper reporters dubbed it “Dance of Danger.” Workers on top of swaying catwalks and high towers, sometimes hundreds of feet in the air, would be blown by powerful winds. Predictions were that for every $1 million spent, one life would be lost.

Engineers on the Golden Gate Bridge, however, believed the risks could be lowered. When construction began in 1932, numerous safety measures were put into place and strictly enforced: mandatory use of hard hats and prescription filtered eyeglasses, implementation of a no showboating policy (cause for automatic firing), use of tie-off lines, and establishment of an on-site hospital greatly reduced the casualty rate. After nearly four years of construction and $20 million spent, only one worker had died.

The most effective safety device, without question, was the use of a trapeze net. This large net, costing $130,000, was draped sixty feet below the roadbed under construction, extending ten feet to either side. This net caught so many falling workers that the newspapers began running box scores on the total number of lives saved. Workers saved by the net were said to have joined the “Halfway to Hell Club.”

Beyond that, the net freed many of the workers from an often-paralyzing sense of fear, which helped them work more productively.

—Robert Lewis with Rob Wilkins, The Church of Irresistible Influence (Zondervan, 2001)