9/11 Remembered

As many of you know, six years ago this morning our country was forever changed with the events that took place in New York City, Washington D.C. and here in Somerset, PA. I still remember like it was yesterday what took place in my own life. I was a sophomore at Central Bible College and had a 9:25 class with Dr. Wootton. I walked into the class to find out it was surprisingly canceled. Little did I know the reason was far worse than I could have imagined. I walked across campus to the student union to check my mail. As I came down the stairs I saw close to 200 students standing around the television watching everything unfold. This was the first I had heard of what was happening. I was in shock. I had never seen our great nation attacked like this. We spent our chapel service that day and the next praying for those involved. It was a fearful time. An uncertain time.

Going to school in Missouri, we never really had any kind of terror threats or even a fear of such a thing. But I was amazed at how much something 20 hours away could still have a major effect on Springfield, MO. The phone lines were overloaded, there was a line of cars at least half a mile in length at the gas station down the street. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. We all knew that everything had changed at that moment. I can still remember the flood of emotion and uncertainty as to what was happening.

Well, today - September 11, 2007 we ARE in a new world. No longer can you meet your loved ones at the gate in an airport, no longer can you bring liquids onto a plane, no longer can you walk through an airport without seeing security, military and police personell everywhere. We live in a post-9/11 world. But in some ways everything's still the same. We still live in a fallen world that needs Jesus. It's just that in today's world the evidence of that is much clearer. Today, allow the memories of 9/11 and the images of the Twin Towers collapsing to burn within you such a passion, not to destroy those that follow some false religion, but to reach this fallen world with a compassion that can only come from the Almighty God.