Wobbly Love

A colossal collapse, a reminder to speak up, and a study in aeroelastic flutter.

This year, we are learning to love better by exploring the greatest commandment – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  We’ve looked at the parts of our lives that are typically associated with love – our heart, soul, and mind, but now we need to finish the journey by investigating how to love with all our strength.  Weak love isn’t much love at all.  Real love is made of sterner stuff, and if we are going to love better, we need to learn how to love with ALL our strength.  Today, is the fourth in a ten-part series on how to have strong love, and today, we need to talk about how love isn’t always tolerant. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is offer a dissenting voice.


Video of Galloping Gertie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XggxeuFDaDU

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

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Transcript

         Leon Moisseiff was born in Latvia, but he emigrated to the United States in 1891 where earned a degree in civil engineering from Columbia University.  Not long after earning his civil engineering degree, Mr. Moisseiff began working on bridges.  He joined the New York City Bridge Department and worked on  the Manhattan Bridge.  After that, moved on to other significant projects like the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

         Leon had an amazing mind for design.  He didn’t just make bridges, he made them beautiful.  In particular, he had applied an engineering concept called ‘deflection theory’ to design lighter and more flexible suspension bridges.  Lighter bridges meant less material, arguably a more beautiful skyline, and a new era of bridgework.  Leon posited that longer bridges could be more flexible, allowing them to withstand various forces more effectively.  More streamlined construction saved money, time, and manpower.  It was a win all around.

         So, when the newly formed Washington Toll Bridge Authority was looking for a lead designer in March of 1937.  Mr. Leon Moisseiff was an obvious choice.  Just coming out of the Great Depression, the state of Washington was looking to build a bridge across the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound, connecting Kitsap Peninsula with the booming city of Tacoma.  With the economic disaster of the Great Depression still firmly fixed within the minds of all Americans, the idea of designing a bridge that could span the straits while saving money by being slender and beautiful seemed like a great idea to everyone.  Build it fast, cheap, and safe… turns out you can pick two of the three.

I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way. 

This year, we are learning to love better by exploring the greatest commandment – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  We’ve looked at the parts of our lives that are typically associated with love – our heart, soul, and mind, but now we need to finish the journey by investigating how to love with all our strength.  Weak love isn’t much love at all.  Real love is made of sterner stuff, and if we are going to love better, we need to learn how to love with ALL our strength.  Today, is the fourth in a ten-part series on how to have strong love, and today, we need to talk about how love isn’t always tolerant. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is offer a dissenting voice.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge ended in disaster, only four months after its completion it collapsed due to something called aeroelastic flutter.  On a windy day in November, the bridge began to wobble when 42 mph crosswinds skimmed across the straits striking the side of the bridge.  The wobble intensified into a full blown sway and twist and eventually the Tacoma Narrows bridge was torn apart by the torsion effect of the wind.  What the engineers, included Mr. Leon Moisseiff, had not accounted for was that as they made the bridge more slender, it could handle downward forces just fine, but it became susceptible to sideways pressure… such as wind.  The bridge turned into a sail that fluttered its way open as the winds struck it.  You may have seen video of the dancing bridge as it fell apart – it practically pranced apart, and forever became known as “Galloping Gertie”.

But here is the weird part – the nickname Galloping Gertie wasn’t given to the Tacoma Narrows bridge by all the folks that saw it fall – it had been given that nickname by the construction workers had built it.  They had felt the vertical oscillations and wobble of the bridge as they were erecting it.  These movements gave the impression that the bridge was "galloping" or undulating like a wave.  Since they knew this all ahead of time… why didn’t they fix it?

The answer is multi-faceted, but it was a combination of pressure to complete the project, overconfidence from the lead designer, Leon, a misjudgment of risk, and the desire to not spend any more money.  In short, it wasn’t popular to say slow down and spend more money, so everyone just kept marching.

Which brings us to the issue of the day.  After a disaster everyone looks for who should have acted, but before the tragedy, typically it isn’t cool to be a whistleblower.

Yet, I will argue that if we are going to love well, we have to be whistleblowers sometimes.  We have to be loud and go against the grain because if we don’t make some waves… well, maybe it will be the collapsing bridge making waves instead.

Like the engineers of Galloping Gertie, we often dismiss early signs of trouble in relationships. Confusing tolerance with love, we allow harmful behaviors or beliefs to go unchallenged because confronting them feels uncomfortable or costly. This false sense of peace can lead to catastrophic relational collapse.

Biblical love, by contrast, doesn’t ignore the “wobbles.” It confronts problems early with grace and truth, seeking to strengthen relationships before they fall apart. Ignoring signs of trouble—whether it’s enabling harmful habits, avoiding conflict, or withholding truth—creates instability that may one day lead to collapse.

Don’t believe me?  Let’s look at some examples.

#1 Ezekiel the Prophet

         As the nation of Israel began to turn its back on God, it didn’t seem that bad to the average citizen at the time.  Sure there was corruption in the government, greedy people that oppressed others or bribed their way to the top, and idolatry was becoming more and more commonplace… but what are you supposed to do about it?

         God’s answer was to send Ezekiel to warn the nation, and God told him his job was:

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 18 If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.” [Eze 3:17-19 ESV]

         God made Ezekiel a watchman – he couldn’t make the people change, but he could warn them of the consequences if they didn’t.  And God made it clear, if Ezekiel didn’t do his job – he would be guilty of being an accessory to murder.  It isn’t love to know someone is going to get hurt and to stay silent.

         Ezekiel warned others from a place of love, not hatred.  So what if they didn’t like the message?  Confronting someone’s bad life choices is an intervention that probably won’t be appreciated, but it comes from a place of love.  If we love people we don’t let them ruin their lives without putting up a fight.  We say something when we see something.

#2 Jesus and the adulterous woman

         In John 8, the scribes and Pharisees bring a woman who had been caught in adultery before Jesus in the hopes of trapping Him.  They knew Jesus preached love all the time and He also preached forgiveness… what would He do with this woman?

         The bulk of the account focuses on Jesus addressing the hypocrisy of the scribes and the Pharisees, but once He dismissed them, He was left alone with the woman and an interesting thing happens.  In John 8:10 it reads,

“Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?

She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." (Jhn 8:10-11) 

         Did you catch that?  Jesus told her to go and sin NO MORE.  There was room for grace and forgiveness, but there was also a clear instruction that adultery was wrong and she needed to stop.  Jesus loved people, but He never tolerated sin.

         And that’s just one example with Jesus – don’t even get me started on how intolerant He was when He drove the moneychangers and merchants out of the temple with a whip!

         You will never, ever help people by pretending that sin is okay.  You can love them, you should love them, but make it clear that your love requires you to disagree with their choices.

Which brings us to example #3 Paul Confronting Peter

In the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he reminds them of a time when he, Paul, had confronted Peter about showing favoritism to the Jewish Christians over the Gentile ones.  This cultural favoritism caused problems in the church and even though Paul and Peter both were apostles and both were trying to teach Jesus… Paul corrected Peter because his hypocrisy was causing damage to himself and the church.

In Paul’s own words, “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?"

It didn’t matter that Paul and Peter were friends.  It didn’t matter that Peter was an apostle, too… and arguably a more prominent one because Peter had been an apostle longer than Paul had.  Peter was wrong and it was causing problems.

Good friends don’t ignore each other’s flaws.  Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”

Your real friends are the ones that tell you when you have spinach in your teeth and look like a dork.  They won’t ignore your flaws, but instead will help you be better.  Flattery may seem like love, but it is more often a disguise for selfishness.

#4 Nathan Confronts David

As king of Israel, David had the power to do whatever he wanted… and that power corrupted him at one point.  He took another man’s wife, tried to cover it up, and eventually had her husband murdered.  It was an egregious abuse of power and a dark blemish in David’s life.

The phrase “speak truth to power” is commonly associated with political activism today, but the prophet Nathan was speaking truth to power long before it was cool.

In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan confronts David and says, "You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. (2Sa 12:7-9 ESV) 

David had the power to kill Nathan… after all he had already killed another man to cover up his sins, but Nathan was unflinching in his condemnation.

Nathan was unafraid to punch up to a weight class above him.  It didn’t matter that David was king.  As 1 Corinthians 13 says, “Love rejoices in the truth.”

If we only tell the harsh truths to people weaker than us, then we are the weaker people.  Strong love sometimes requires confrontation.

So, don’t wait for the bridge to fall.  If we wait to give the warning until after the bridge collapses, we’ve waiting too long.  Address the wobbles in your relationships.  Talk to people about heaven (and hell) before they are standing before the judgment of God.  Confront that friend you see wobbling before they have completely fallen off the wagon… and don’t wait to mend the wobbles in your marriage until Gertie is galloping off to the divorce lawyer.

When the bridge starts to wobble don’t laugh, show love and stand up.

Learn to love better, learn to address the wobbles early.

As always, thank you for listening and hopefully we've done something to help make your life a little bit better.  If you have a chance to rate, review or share the podcast it would be a blessing.  By sharing with others or leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, you help us reach more people. 

Or maybe you have a fun or obscure history account, a feel-good news story, or a riveting scientific fact you think could help us love better.  If so, I’d love to hear it!  Feel free to email me at scott@biblegrad.com 

And if you are ever in the Louisville, KY area, I’d like to invite you to worship with us at the Eastland congregation.  We meet for worship every Sunday and have Bible classes for all ages Wednesday’s, too.  If you want more information about Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org.  Or if you are looking for more tools to enrich your Bible study, visit my personal Bible site, Biblegrad.com, where you can read daily Bible devotionals called Biblebites, take online Bible classes, or find videos that will help you study through the Bible throughout the year.

And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”