How is the world different so many years later? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Many times when Allie and I are going in and out of our apartment complex, we see kids waiting for the school bus or getting off the bus. I have told Allie that these kids are growing up in the digital age. All their lives there would have been iPhones and internet and wi-fi and so many other things.
Today, there are people now who are full-fledged legal adults. They are a small number now, but it will grow over time. They are people who are adults who have never known a life without 9-11.
For these people, this evil will be a part of history always, and that is a great concern. When evil becomes a part of history, we tend to miss its shaping and influence. We assume the world is as it has always been. This is normal.
Today, many skeptics complain about slavery in the Bible arguing that we can all know that slavery is wrong. It’s easy to say that after centuries of a Christian background. Go back in time and many people you meet will say the exact opposite. It’s a part of life.
It’s not knowing our history that causes us to not appreciate where we are today.
I hope that we will pass on to the next generation the lessons of history that we have come to learn. I hope we will pass on how many innocent people died in the most horrific terrorist attack on U.S. soil to date. Even now when this day comes, I wonder if some terrorist organization will try to do something again.
9-11 did something in shattering our safety. We are not invincible. We can be attacked. We all learned it. I was listening to a radio program awhile ago talking about something that was eerie in Manhattan on that day was the silence. Manhattan is usually buzzing with noise, but it wasn’t that day. Everything was shut down. Schools were even still closed the next day. People had to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to get home.
For me, I was in Bible College in Knoxville, Tennessee. Before the chapel service began, someone came in to tell us a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. Okay. We didn’t know much about it. I suspect a lot of us forgot about it. I was thinking it was likely some crazy freak accident by a drunk pilot.
After the service, we heard about the second plane hitting the second tower.
This was no accident.
Before long, many of us were gathered in a lobby area for students watching it on TV. I certainly remember watching when the first building came down. I remember a leader suggesting we all gather and pray.
Safety is easy to take for granted.
In reality, every good thing is easy to take for granted.
Let’s never take our safety for granted and let’s always remember our history. Evil is real. We need to learn what the world was like before great events and after. If we do not learn from history, we will keep repeating it.
And no one should want to repeat 9-11.
Never forget.
In Christ,
Nick Peters