A Day We Wish We Could Forget

Sitting here this morning thinking about  9-11-2001; and  three songs came in to my mind: Darryl Worley's "Have You Forgotten", Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning" and An artist unknown to me "Do You Remember?" 

All three of those songs talk about a day none of us could ignore; nor ever forget.  

Maybe not in our every minute; but this date is one that will never pass without a memory.  Why?  Because it woke us up to the possibility that the United States of America is also vulnerable.  

And that is horrifying to a people who have, for so long, lived in denial of such possibility.

The songs are graphic and bring back the pain of that day.  The sadness that our sisters and brothers on the East coast experienced in those awful moments in New York City, Washington D.C. and in the air over Pennsylvania.  

The destruction was massive and quick.  

No chance to change it. 

   

No possibility that it didn't happen on American soil.  

      

Bam

          Done 

                     Horrifying

                                          Period.  

Now, in the safety of your own home today, think about  that horrific -- un-godly  -- action taken in the name of God.  Yes, in the name of "God", a minority group of people who claim to have the will of God as their personal guide for doing what they do.

And yet what they did, it seems to me and many others I am sure, was so against the God I have faith in.

  

Now, I invite you to remember the God that Jesus came to personally model for us.

The God of love and compassion, mercy and forgiveness.  

A God who wants peace among his people. 

A God who came in Jesus skin to teach us not to be mean or unkind to others. 

A God who long before he came to earth, in Jesus skin, had his Prophet Isaiah announce to the nation:

4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they  learn war any more.   

Now ask you:  Does that sound like a God who would have airplanes do such massive destruction and murder?

And yet, with all that being written, we have in our country groups of Christians -- who claim to believe in Jesus --  who would have us believe that God is a God like the god the Taliban believes in — a God of wrath, judgment and destruction.  Who want us to believe that if we don't watch out God will get us, and punish us, and send us to hell or maybe have us killed. 

Now go on tube and listen to those songs sung from deep in hearts of those three men.  

                Watch the pictures.  

                           Then remember that morning.  

Where you are and what you are doing" 

And remember now the healing that has taken place by God's Grace alone.  

And remember that God does not wish for us to do harm -- large or small -- to our neighbors.  

Neighbors close.  

                        Or neighbors far away.