Ten Years.
One Decade.
Kind of Amazing to think about it. Many of my current students were only in first or second grade when this thing happened ten years ago.
You probably will read about memories or perhaps questions to our current national safety. You may watch some retrospective or “talking heads” debating the efforts of President Bush and Obama. I’m sure if you are an NFL fan, the league will have some sort of special thing they do at their games. College football may have also done that on Saturday.
Where are we? Who are we? Who do you want us to be? Who do you want yourself to be?
To me, these are the real questions we should be asking, though few do. These questions are deep, personal, getting down into the core of your being, what you really believe. Many don’t like to plumb those depths, but rather stay at the surface of life.
Ten years ago, I was writing for a local Orlando magazine. I think my words to the city then are still apt today, so as you reflect on these past 10 years, I hope that you will pause to consider the deeper questions, questions that our national leaders can’t really answer—only you can.
Well, if you ever doubted that we had entered a strange new world a few years back, you don’t any more. In this monthly column, I usually try to take a look at popular culture with a Christian viewpoint, but my mind is, like everyone else’s, trapped by the images of collapsing towers.
We are in a swirl of emotions, images and thoughts as we attempt to regain some equilibrium about the tragedy that hit our nation in September. You are probably reading these words in November, a time when we might be thinking about the holidays. We will do that, of course, and maybe this Thanksgiving we will be truly thankful, but right now its late September, only 2 weeks since we were jolted into the reality of the war that has been raging around the world for a few years now.
Already many are getting apocalyptic (and maybe for good reason) with the image of a devilish face in the smoke, the various fake Nostradamus quotes, and thoughts of war. Billy Graham preaching the gospel to all nations at one time at the Friday memorial service the week of the attack is just one more shocking idea that hits the internet.
It is not all that amazing that the date of the attack is 9/11/01. 9-1-1 is our national call sign for an emergency. This is a 9-1-1 for America. But who will we call? Many are once again praying to God, but do they know who they are even talking to?
My prayer for the church in America is that we will finally shake off the slumber and rise up to be the disciples He said we should be. We must take the stage now as Salt and Light in what may be (at the very moment you are reading this) a world war of sorts. God has given us this moment to have people with a desire to hear. Are we ready to speak clearly, past the religious mumbo-jumbo, to a real story about a real person that you really have a real relationship with?
So, America, what will it be? Will we 9-1-1 our military forces? Will we 9-1-1 the President? Our allies? Will we, like Israel from centuries of old, turn to allies that once were our enemies? Or will we 9-1-1 the Eternal One, the Creator God, the God of our forefathers? Will we pray to God for His mercy and will we turn from our wicked ways?
I’ve been calling my church to make these days ones of intense prayer, fasting, soul searching. Of course, do all you can for the victims and their families. Pray for wisdom for our leaders. But also, ask God to help you be the person who lives out a life that is worthy of the calling.
And, so now, on 9/11/11, take time to reflect. Pray for the families of those victims; pray for the soldiers and their families, many of whom have been making monumental sacrifice for almost the entire decade, far beyond “one tour of duty.” But at the same time, honor those victims and soldiers by digging deep into the core issue of “who you are.”
For what are you living your life? For whom? Don’t run from these questions—the stake of our country and what it becomes rests on our individual answers.