Twenty-five years have passed since the morning the skyline broke.
On September 11, 2001, two towers that looked like they would stand forever came down in a little more than an hour. Nearly three thousand lives were taken. Families were shattered. A nation that had felt invincible discovered it was not. For a season, churches filled. People prayed who had not prayed in years. Then the shock faded, the calendar moved on, and many of us returned to building our own smaller towers—careers, savings, reputations, and the quiet assumption that tomorrow would look normal.
A quarter-century later the smoke has cleared, but the lesson remains...
Scripture has told us what that day shouted: what is seen is temporary. “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17). Empires rise and fall. Markets crash. Marriages end. Bodies fail. Concrete and steel look permanent until they don’t. Hebrews says we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28). That is not a poetic line. It is the only foundation that survives the fire.
That is also why worship is not a fair-weather habit.
The Bible never told us to praise God only when things are going our way. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18). Paul and Silas sang hymns at midnight in a jail after a beating. Job lost everything and still said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Habakkuk looked at empty fields and a nation coming apart and said, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17–18).
Worship and lament often live in the same place. The psalms tell the truth about pain and still bless the Lord. Hebrews 13:15 speaks to “a sacrifice of praise”—something offered when it costs something. “I will bless the Lord at all times” Psalm 34:1 is not a mood. It is a decision about who God is when everything is shaking.
Keeping faith in the eternal does not mean pretending 9/11 didn’t rip people open, or that the losses we carry now don’t hurt. It means refusing to let the visible world set the final terms. The cross already told us the WORST day in history was not the LAST word. Death did not win. The grave did not keep what it took. Because of that, we can look at hard years, failing health, and a culture that feels like it is coming apart and still say, “The Lord is my refuge and my fortress” (Psalm 91:2).
Twenty-five years after 9/11, the call is the same as it was the day the towers fell: do not build your hope on anything that can burn. Worship the One who cannot. Love the people in front of you. Tell the truth. Gather together. Remember that the city we are waiting for has foundations whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10).
Everything around us may fall. Faith in God remains. And that's enough for me.
