9-11 Remembered

Michael E. Wood

September 11, 2012

"Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Alan Jackson. Written in the wake of the September 11 attacks, it was introduced at the Country Music Association's annual awards show on November 7, 2001.

Yes, I remember where I was that day and the tears that came to my eyes when hearing the above song on numerous occasions. A huge problem that looms in the midst of tragedies is our tendency to view them with the skewed blindness of our own interests and pursuits. Some times the things that occur cause us as humans to stop in our tracks and make spurious decisions with nothing but our own welfare in mind. Such can be said for many professions of faith in Christ

A “decision” can be made with thoughts only of deliverance from the pain that we feel in the moment, without any inclination of true repentance from sin or faith toward God in Christ.

On the other hand, God can take the tragedies of our life to reveal the fact that it is our sins that has brought about the effect not only of the circumstances of our life but our guilt and offence toward His righteous, Holy demands. His demands are representative of His character, His position as Sovereign LORD over all things, and the God to whom all glory belongs.

Thus in the midst of our personal tragedies, He can choose to crush us under the weight of our guilt to see the condemnation we justly deserve. In the place of feeling we are without hope, He can then enable us to see by faith through the power of His Spirit that Christ, who had no sin of His own, has borne our sin. He exhausted the wrath of God in our place, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. This brings about a transformation, whereby we are made complete in Christ, fully justified before God as our Father.

Our Father sees the end from the beginning, which is the display of His own glory; and for that purpose continually, renews us to faith and repentance not to be repented of.  He calls us to responsibility before Him. In love, He continually renews and enables us to be responsible before Him.

Having risen about 4:00 am this morning, I found myself struggling to be alert enough to focus on the things God was pleased to reveal to me through His Word and in the continuation of reading through “The Christian in Complete Armour” by William Gurnall, I had decided it might be profitable to lie back down and get a short nap before continuing the day in preparation for the events of the rest of the week. As I lay there meditating on the things of which I read and committing those things to the Lord in prayer the words of the first stanza of the following poem came to mind. Thinking that would be the end for the moment, I wrote down the time and then the date, which was 8:26am, 9-11-12. That in turn spawned the remainder of the poem, and when I looked at the time of which it was completed it just happened to be 9:11 am.

I must confess that my pursuit of You in what I think

Is not what it yet ought to be and thankful that You wink

At ignorance that’s past and calls to faith; repentance new,

That You may be my All and All, and You alone pursue!

I think upon that day that my own towers were torn down

In which my elevated pride was cast unto the ground.

Amidst the rubble, You sprang in and cast Your Own pure Light

To see the glory of my Savior, hanging in Your sight

Upon the cross with all my sin, in love He bore that day,

Consumed Your wrath, that righteousness in me, He might display.

And as His perfect patience brings again my soul to tears,

I thank You for Your goodness and Your mercy o’er the years,

Of which I see now follows as the Shepherd of my soul

Leads me by still waters, which refresh and make me whole.

So as we think on tragedy, let us likewise remember

That we were enemies of God, Who gave us sweet surrender

By the One True Sacrifice to make us all His Own,

By His Spirit through the blood of Christ who did atone!