FREEWAY
TO GOD

Topics: Depravity; Gospel; Jesus Christ; Salvation; Savior

References: Isaiah 59:1–2; Romans 3:9–26; Ephesians 2:1–10; Titus 3:3–7

Whenever I drive to the east side of Portland over the Marquam Bridge, I’m reminded of what it took for God to save us. On the upper deck of that two-decker freeway spanning the wide Willamette River, you can catch a glimpse of an exit that drops off into empty space.

When the Marquam Bridge was built in the mid-1960s, it was designed to accommodate an east-running freeway still on the drawing boards, known as the Mount Hood Freeway. But the freeway was never built. Oregon voters opted for a light rail line instead, and plans for the highway were scrapped.

Even though there is no Mount Hood Freeway, you can certainly see Mount Hood from the top deck of the Marquam Bridge. On clear days it looms on the eastern horizon—a symmetrical, snow-capped beauty. And if you look carefully, you can see how the bridge was built to accommodate a freeway lane veering off to the southeast. It juts out just a bit from the bridge structure and then is cut off as though sliced by a giant knife.

The exit, permanently blocked, now goes nowhere—except into the waters of the Willamette far below. You can see Mount Hood in all its beauty, but you could never reach the high slopes of that mighty peak via the Mount Hood Freeway, because the freeway doesn’t exist.

Likewise, we might understand there is a God. We might recognize his power and glory, his majesty and goodness, and desire with all our hearts to know him and be with him. But the distance is too great. The gulf is too wide.

Only through Jesus Christ can we cross that gulf to God the Father. And that freeway does exist.

—Ron Mehl, Love Found a Way (WaterBrook, 1999)