9/11

Today is September 11, 2012.
9/11.
A day of remembrance.
Two jets flew into the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City.
One jet flew into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
One jet crashed into a field in the country side of Pennsylvania.
On this day,lives were lost. Families changed forever by the events that transpired.

We saw the destruction that can be brought into our lives by people who are determined to bring death to the shore of our country. Driven by a mixture of religion and politics those who hijacked the jets on 9/11/01, allowed themselves to be swallowed up in a false dogma that lead them to give their lives for what they perceived to be a just cause. I guess the truth of what Jeremiah the prophet wrote still rings true today. "The heart is deceitful above all things....who can know it?"

Some have asked, "Where was God that day?" Why would we think that He would be anywhere but there in the midst of the events that took place? There are those who claim that if God truly did exist and loved us, He would have stopped the destruction and never allowed it to happen. I'm not smart enough to make such a claim. I do know that since those events of 9/11, I have seen the hand of God at work in the middle of the chaos. I have watched over and over in replays on television,as those towers fell, and wondered to myself why did they simply fall straight down? Why did they not tumble and tip over? Could it be that the hand of God directed all that steel and metal, glass and concrete to simply fall straight down? Rest assured God was there in New York, and in Washington, D.C. and in Pennsylavania.

Some have made statements that what we, as a nation, experienced on that day was a judgment from God. I don't know. I'm not smart enough to figure that one out. I have prayed about it and the only answer I have received is, "Trust me." Just because I have a need to ask God hard questions, doesn't mean that He is obligated to answer me. I still must live by faith that God is who He claims to be, and will do what He claims He will do. I trust Him.

I was at Gadsden Vineyard Church that morning of 9/11. I usually arrived at the church between 7 and 7:30 a.m. Sitting in the main room, studying and preparing for a teaching I was to give that afternoon at Rapha, the phone rang. It was my wife calling to tell me what had happened. I immediately went home to watch the news coverage. I remember standing in my living room watching CNN as they gave report after report of what had taken place. I prayed. I prayed, yet didn't even have words to physically say.Over and over....."Oh God, please be God in the middle of all of this. Be God! Be God!" In other words, my heart was asking that God would bring to bear His nature and His character in the middle of this event. I prayed that healing would be brought to those who needed it. I prayed protection over the workers, the Medics, The Firemen and Police. I prayed.

Eleven years after the fact, I am now more convinced than ever that God was indeed there when those Towers came down. He wasn't silent and He wasn't absent. He wasn't any less God simply because I don't understand why things turned out like they did.
I rest in the knowledge that He is God today.
Should another even take place like what happened on 9/11, He will continue to be God.
There is a comfort in that thought.

God on you.....
mb