I say that I cannot control the consequences of that past moment—“That is water under the bridge.”
God still controls all the water whether it has passed under my bridge or not. He made the waters above and below the firmament. He turned water into blood. He caused great mudslides in the era of the Judges. He cleansed a sinful world with it while the faithful were in the ark. He walked on it. Surely he can redeem the proverbial water under my bridge. That’s His work of redemption.
I say “That ship has sailed.”
God says, “There are three things that are too wonderful” for my comprehension. One of those things is “the way of a ship in the middle of the sea” (Proverb 30:18,19). God knows every path and deep current of the sea (Psalm 8:6-8). He has dominion! He can promise an apostle that land will be reached without loss of life. He can place Jonah directly from the mouth of a great fish onto the dry land—the beach of opportunity. He can erupt the fountains of the deep (Proverb 8:28,29). Even my idioms about lost opportunities are not applicable when God is the Redeemer.
I say “That door has closed”
God says “Knock and it shall be opened.”
Sometimes the day is very dark and the future looks bleak. But there’s really only one point when the barge of your life has sailed; when the door of all opportunity is closed. We all have an appointment with death. Until then, let’s trust. Let’s trust that our Redeemer replaces lost opportunities with new ones.
The opportunity of attaining forgiveness and starting again is the most tragic of lost opportunities. Someone has said that opportunity often comes wearing overalls and it looks like too much like work. Sometimes opportunity is demanding and a little dirty and it looks too much like sacrifice.
The rich man in Luke 16 had an opportunity. He could have gone out to the gate where Lazarus was lying and taken advantage of God’s powerful redemption at any point prior to his own death. But his ship had sailed at the point of the lifting of his eyes, being in torment. And he wished for just one drop of water to cool his tongue. There was no remaining opportunity. The water he desperately wanted was now “under the bridge”.