Written by Pastor Gardner Saturday, 12 September 2009 14:50

Like most people, I will never forget where I was when I first heard of the tragic events of 9/11. I was sitting at my desk at the CLA law office in Florida talking to a private investigator on the telephone when he told me that it had just come across the TV that a plane had flown into one of the buildings of the World Trade Center.

Our early speculation was that it was a little Cessna with a private pilot who had made a huge error in judgment. We wondered how someone could be such a bad pilot that he would fly into such a huge building.

After hanging up, I broke the news to the rest of the people in the office and each of us went on the internet to see what breaking news we could find. Within minutes, we saw that another plane had hit the other building of the WTC and realized that this was no accident, but a spineless act of terrorism. Minutes later the servers of all the main news services were so overloaded that the internet was functionally shut down.

The CLA staff quickly gathered together for prayer. I then drove home in shock to pick up a portable TV to take back to the office to watch the news coverage. Like most people, I grew increasingly angered, but somewhat numb, as the facts of the terrorism were developed over the rest of the day and evening.

As well as I remember the events of 9/11, I also remember the events of the following days. There was a run on the stores of the Tampa Bay area as people bought flags and patriotic paraphernalia of every kind. Car ornaments seemed to be particularly popular. and I remember buying magnetic flags for our car doors and pennant  flags to fly from the side windows of our cars.

But I also remember this: businesses and store fronts of every type put “God Bless America” and related messages on their kiosks; that Sunday, our church was packed and set a record for attendance; and even secular news anchors were making references to God and calling on Americans to pray.

It seems that it took this tragedy to get America to acknowledge its dependence upon God. Unfortunately, this acknowledgment was short lived, and within a month, church attendance returned to pre-911 numbers, and many of the signs acknowledging our Creator started to come down.  How sad!

Friend, please take this lesson to heart and apply it to your individual life. You need God in your life. Don’t wait for a personal tragedy to cause you to turn to Him, and when you do acknowledge your need for Him, don’t let personal prosperity cause you to forget Him.