Like most Americans, I remember exactly where I used to be and what I used to be doing throughout the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Hearing the reports at work, my first response after crying out to God for help and asking Him to guard us from what was happening was to right away leave the office to drive the 45-minute drive home to be with my family so we could pray together and luxury each other.
During those moments, my thoughts and emotions were to be with family members, knowing like fellow believers across America, where our family’s hope laid. Psalm 91:2 assures us, “I’ll say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
9/11 Memories Linger
For those living during 9/11, even 23 years after the terrorist attacks, the memory of disbelief, terror, grief, and sorrow lingers. Fear gripped the hearts of Americans across our nation and altered how our country moved forward.
Statistics report that 2,977 people perished on September 11, 2001, in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, by the hands of Islamic extremists who hijacked 4 business airliners, carrying out suicide attacks against the United States.
Megan Scheibner’s husband, Steve, the American Airlines pilot originally scheduled to fly the primary plane that hit the World Trade Center was bumped last minute off the flight by a senior pilot, sparing his life that day. She wrote, “We all, as a nation, have our memories of that day; memories stamped into our subconscious due to the enormity of that major life event. Memories of a significant life event that continues to shape our homes, our nation, and in reality, our world.”
9/11 Spiritual Impact
What took place on 9/11 deeply impacted our nation. Flags were lowered to half-mast mourning those that were killed, businesses and schools shut down, and other people flocked to fill churches to wish and luxury each other.
Verses like 1 Thessalonians 5:3 caused some to wonder if End Times were upon us, seeming to explain what was happening around us during 9/11: “While individuals are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they’ll not escape.”
It was devastating and traumatic for our nation and at the identical time turned many hearts to God, realizing our safety lies in Him, and never in ourselves. As Proverbs 1:33 explains, “But whoever listens to Me will live in safety and be relaxed, without fear of harm.”
9/11 Viewpoint for America Going Forward
In looking ahead toward America’s future, we’re searching through eyes that remember 9/11 and the devastation experienced. It modified how we view what’s happening around us, in our nation, and in our world.
Troubling trending headlines warn us of what’s going down across America, reading reports of gangs and foreign military men invading America’s border. This and more has us wondering what’s being planned under our very noses.
It has some asking, “Does America have a future?” If so, is it hanging within the balance? Are we losing our country right under our feet?
Are Americans being naïve, missing what’s going down in our land? Are terrorists invading and organising operations across our nation, including our own backyards? Is defunding of police and calls to disarm American residents playing into this bigger-picture plan?
9/11 Aftermath: Is America’s Future Hanging within the Balance?
Silence Equals Consent: The Sin of Omission writer, historian, and speaker William J. Federer warns, “The fate of America and the world hangs within the balance, and we’re key to turning things around. But the clock is ticking.”
Federer has been chatting with Americans for years, alerting us to what’s going down across our nation and in our communities, warning of the chance of doing nothing and staying silent, and inspiring Americans to wake as much as our responsibilities as residents by helping our country for ourselves and our posterity. He urges us to hold onto hope, saying, “Let’s imagine it is feasible to show things around, and that is now our turn!”
He reminds us how on March 30, 1961, America’s future fortieth President, Ronald Reagan, spoke to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce on the importance of passing on the history, lessons, and sacrifices of freedom to our future generations:
“Freedom is rarely a couple of generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our youngsters within the bloodstream. The only way they’ll inherit the liberty we’ve known is that if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, after which hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they of their lifetime must do the identical. And when you and I do not do that, you then and I may perhaps spend our sunset years telling our youngsters and our youngsters’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”
As Proverbs 11:14 explains, “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers.”
9/11 Wake-Up Call to Christians
“Perhaps God is giving people of religion a chance to indicate what they really imagine of their hearts through their words and actions,” writes Federer.
“History is stuffed with accounts of individuals suffering coercion and persecution by godless totalitarian governments, maligned, smeared, canceled and crushed in hopeless situations against insurmountable odds,” he writes, “but then, stirred by the Spirit, little nobodies stand up, small in their very own eyes, but big in faith and courage, to talk truth to power and to withstand evil.”
Federer believes Christians are key to turning things around, urging that while we’ve the possibility, we must take the chance to vary the longer term for the higher, asking the query, “Shouldn’t we a minimum of try? And are we being given one last probability to indicate what we actually imagine in our hearts through our words and actions?”
As a nation, we’d like to ask if Christians have been pressured into silence and withdrawal from government and schools. Likewise, have our churches modified from being involved to not being involved? And what impact has the removal of prayer from schools affected generations? As well, have we as Americans lost rights within the name of safety measures as a result of 9/11 and COVID?
9/11 Call for a Spiritual Awakening
The late Dr. D. James Kennedy, former pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, once said, “Too often we forget that America became a nation soon after a spiritual revival, the First Great Awakening. Then within the 1800s, America experienced a Second Great Awakening, which helped bring a couple of moral revolution—particularly in addressing the evil of slavery. But now we’re in need of a Third Great Awakening.”
Kennedy described what this looks like: “Many individuals are under the misunderstanding that the federal government will solve all our problems. But I feel that true change goes to happen when people throughout the nation begin to trust in Christ and within the God that made this nation great. And that may bring a couple of real revival. A revival that eventually moves to the halls of presidency. Not from the federal government down, but from the people up. God once declared, ‘If My people, that are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and switch from their wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and can forgive their sin, and can heal their land!’ (2 Chronicles 7:14). May or not it’s in our day.”
9/11 Memory Leads to Help and Hope for America’s Future
After 9/11 and all that’s currently going down today in America, there stays help and hope for its future.
Evangelist Billy Graham, in his September 14, 2001, 9/11 message at Washington National Cathedral, said, “But today we come together on this service to admit our need of God. We’ve all the time needed God from the very starting of this nation. But today we’d like Him especially. We’re involved in a latest sort of warfare. And we’d like the assistance of the Spirit of God.”
In his message, Graham went on to say, “Yes, there may be hope. There is hope for the current since the stage, I feel, has already been set for a latest spirit in our nation. We desperately need a spiritual renewal on this country, and God has told us in His Word time after time that we’d like to repent of our sins and return to Him, and He will bless us in a latest way.”
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Enterline Design Services LLC.
Lynette Kittle is married with 4 daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.
