“May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”

It’s now been over 10 years since 9/11 and we awoke this morning on 9/12 and we are going about our business and life just like we did on Friday, or yesterday. Yet, yesterday on the news, in church, in conversations, in the press, all over, we reflected back on how different it was on 9/12 ten years ago than it is today. Ten years ago today, we didn’t have any clear understanding of how many people had died in the terror attacks, we weren’t sure who to blame, and we weren’t sure of what would happen next, or what we could expect going forward, but we were different than how we were on 9/11. On 9/12 we woke up and even though we were scared, anxious, grounded in a city far from home, separated from loved ones, and yes, a little bit angry, we started treating each other differently. We waved at people we didn’t know. We let the little irritants go and we smiled instead of how we might normally react. We called and emailed people we hadn’t talked to forever just to see how they were. We gave of ourselves to causes and people who needed us. We became tolerant and civil with people we disagreed. We bonded and came together as people who cared for each other. Ten years ago, we were different on 9/12 than who we were on 9/11. On 9/12 we all looked a lot more like the place and living that God laid out for us in His Word.

Today, we as believers, we should hold ourselves accountable to returning to our 9/12/01 ways. We have been given God’s promises and the hope that is God’s. Paul says it all in Roman’s 15:13, quoted above. Have we been living to God’s promise of hope, peace, trust so that we can let that overflow out of us to others with power? Let’s today see if we can embody that hope and also carry ourselves back to 9/12/01 and remember who we were on that day!

Reference: Romans 15:13