Remember

I was in Mrs. Anderson's fourth grade class. Since we were only ten or eleven, they didn't let us watch the footage, but we got the ten-year-old-terms version: something bad happened in New York City and a lot of people have died. Jordan read a verse, we prayed, and the day went on as normal. When we got home I sat on the couch watching the news while I worked on math homework; we were leaving for the mountains two days later and had to work ahead on school assignments. My dad is a pilot and hadn't come home from work yet, and even though we were a good way away from New York I was still pretty paranoid. But when he walked in our kitchen I thought everything was under control. Later that night he sat with my siblings and me and told us a bit more about what had happened. I was terrified he'd have to go to war (I'd seen "Hogan's Heroes," I knew about the draft), but he assured me he wouldn't be called. And for my ten-year-old self, life continued as normal.

I didn't know it at the time, but that day attributed to a shift of our nation back to God. Now, in the years after the fact, I've realized that America is a nation under God as needed. At that point "In God We Trust" was all over the place: bumper stickers, T-shirts, billboards. And then...well, nothing. It was like God had blessed America with a littl ehealing, a little rebirth, and we waved Him back into the clouds with a "we'll let you know if we need anything else."

And we shake our fists at the sky when things go wrong and say, "Where were You when this happened?" I can just imagine Him shaking His head and saying, "Sorry, boys, you didn't summon Me for this one."

Where is God when tragedy strikes? That's the typical question. Or the other one: why did God let this happen? If God is a God of love and compassion, how does He allow (or cause) horrible things to happen to innocent people?

People who ask these questions forget that little space between creation and the Flood in Genesis, between perfection and destruction. Remember the Garden of Eden? Remember when Adam and Eve screwed up and were kicked out of paradise? There were all those pronouncements: snakes won't walk, work will be hard, childbirth will be hell. Creation wasn't cursed because God was having a bad day - the current state of our fallen world is in reaction to man's sin. Plain and simple. Two people failed, and every single person (except One) since then has paid the price. You look at every tragedy that's occurred in the history of time - the Irish potato famine, the European black plague epidemic, the San Francisco earthquake; every tsunami, tornado, hurricane, and flood; the Cambodian killing fields; shootings at schools; explosions at hospitals; and, more importantly on this day, the murder of thousands by enemy terrorists - and it can be traced back to sin. Let me say that again: tragedy is a result of sin, NOT GOD.

THE WORLD AS IT IS, IS NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE. When tragedy strikes and people die, God isn't sitting removed in heaven saying, "Yeah, you got what you deserved." And if we got what we deserved, we'd be punished every single time we sinned. Oh, that negative thought you had about somebody the other day? Punished. Bam. BUT OUR GOD IS NOT LIKE THAT!!!!!! He is a God of grace, who has given us a way out of that punishment that we earn every time we sin! He grieves with those who grieve; He feels our suffering; He sees the way the world is, and it breaks His heart, because it's wasn't supposed to be this way. The only people who will "get what they deserve" are those who ignore the grace and life He extends to us (Rom. 2.7-11). We don't serve a sadistic God who gets His giggles by making us suffer, because it's not Him who makes us suffer! It's like going to the doctor with a broken leg and blaming the doctor for breaking it and not preventing you from getting hurt. God is indeed there when the world suffers, but He's not the cause.

Oh, and to you who say 9.11 was God's way of judging America: we have the account of God's judgment on a whole people. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? God's judgment then wasn't an attack on one part of the city, it was total annihilation of the entire city. When that happens in the U.S., then you can say that God is judging America.

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My thoughts and prayers go to the families of those lost eleven years ago.