Remembering When…

Sitting in the back office of a convenience store in St Johns, Michigan, I was just in the beginning stages of a manager interview with one of our district managers. 

We had only started the introduction phase of the interview, when one of the CSR’s knocked on the office door.  When I opened the door, I was told I had an emergency phone call from one of the other DM’s. 

“Just thought you might want to turn on your TV… One of the World Trade Center towers has just been hit by a plane.”  “OK”, I said… “After we get done with our interview”. 

15 minutes later there was another knock on the door… informing me of another phone call… “You’d better turn on the TV!  A second plane just hit the other tower!  We’re under attack!”. 

We stopped the interview at that point and turned on the TV.  After a brief moment of watching the horror that was taking place in New York, our interviewee politely asked, “is it all right if I leave so that I can call my brother?  He works at the World Trade Center.” 

Without a second thought, we let her leave as we continued to watch the devastation of the attack on September 11th.

That was 25 years ago this week, but the memory of that day is still burned in my mind as fresh as the day it happened.  Everyone’s lives were changed that day as our nation plunged headlong into a war on terror against the perpetrators of this heinous attack on our country. 

But there was also a prophesied turn of events that took place that day… a warning… a prediction… a call to repentance… a call to holiness…  listen to what was prophesied to us  2,780 years ago in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 30:18-25  Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who wait for him!  

O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.  Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." 

Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows.   The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. 

In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill.

“On the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall”… “your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it”. 

On that day… September 11th… did your ears hear His voice?  Mine did!  I’d be willing to wager that your ears heard it too.  It was a call to holiness… a call to put away the idols in our lives that were drawing us away from His purpose and plan for us. 

Look at the verses again… He left us with an amazing promise! 

Seed to sow… food rich and plentiful… cattle… broad meadows… oxen and donkey working and eating to their hearts content… streams of water flowing… all promised to us as His kids as we put away our worldly plans in exchange for pressing into God. 

He called us all that day… September 11th…  the day of great slaughter, when the towers fell. 

He’s still calling us!  A call to repentance… a call to a life of godliness and holiness. 

Don’t delay… can you hear his voice behind you?  He’s telling us, “This is the way; walk in it!”.