Today is the 20th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the crash of Flight 93 before it became another fuel-laden missile to damage another symbol of America. I keep reading things that claim that this is a day that changed the world. I beg to differ. It did not change the world; it simply changed many people’s perceptions of the world.
Please don’t think I am unsympathetic to the plight of those who lost loved ones, or who have vivid memories of changes these attacks brought in their lives. My husband was an Air Force Officer stationed at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, and the afternoon of the attacks, he called me to say he didn’t know when he would be home. Neighbors and parents of my children’s friends worked in the Twin Towers. Mercifully, no one we knew personally was lost. But we did hear story after story about missed trains or unexpected phone calls that kept people from being in the buildings as the planes struck. I have worn red every Friday since then to remind myself and others to pray for the service members and their families who were still serving in Afghanistan to keep terrorists from our shores. Many times, those prayers were for people I knew.
My premise is that the world did not change on September 11, 2001, but in the garden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sin entered the world then, and death with it. Death and evil are always present, but they are usually hidden from our sight.
Genesis 6:5 (ESV) “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Americans and most of the Western world in 2001 were blessed to live in a place where this wickedness was contained to a few individual actors. People still murdered, loved ones were killed in senseless tragedies such as accidents caused by impaired drivers, but the scale was small and localized. Most people were untouched by evil and felt invincible. “Things like that could never happen here,” they would say. Most certainly didn’t look to God as being in control or considering what he thought. Again, nothing new…
Psalm 10:3-6 (TPT) How they brag and boast of their cravings, exalting the greedy.
They congratulate themselves as they despise you—
these arrogant ones, so smug and secure!
In their delusion the wicked boast, saying,
“God doesn’t care about what we do.
There’s nothing to worry about!”
So successful are they in their schemes
and prosperous in all their plans!
Your laws are far from them;
they scoff at their enemies.
They boast that neither God nor men will bring them down.
They sneer at all their enemies, saying in their hearts,
“We’ll have success in all we do
and never have to face trouble.”
And then trouble came to our shores. Planes crashed, towers fell, as the attackers used planes full of passengers to wreak havoc and destruction. Fear, uncertainty, grief, and anger were all unleashed on American soil. People expressed surprise. Everyone hugged our loved ones closer. There were questions of how this could happen here. Many went to Church to look for answers. Some stayed, but for many, the memories faded and people drifted back to old ways, and even found new ways to ignore God. They do so at their peril.
Psalm 2:4 (ESV) “He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.”
Don’t loose your perception of who controls the world. Give thanks for the myriad of times when you or a loved one are preserved, usually unbeknown to you. And remember the importance of sharing with others the one who saves.
Hebrews 7: 24-25(TPT) “But Jesus permanently holds his priestly office, since he lives forever and will never have a successor!
“ So he is able to save fully from now throughout eternity, everyone who comes to God through him, because he lives to pray continually for them.”
Soli Deo Gloria,
Diane