It started like any other day. It was business as usual as people rushed to work, to school, to appointments and meetings. There was nothing much to alert the world that things were about to change dramatically.
I remember the phone ringing just after 6:00 AM (Arizona time). It was my husband telling me to turn on the television. Something major was happening in New York. Something major didn’t even begin to describe the horror.
This past week I watched an anniversary special on 9/11 as the day unfolded in real time. The sights, the sounds and reactions were no less gut-wrenching than when I watched the actual events 20 years ago. My stomach ached, my throat was clogged with emotion; tears rained unchecked as I watched in disbelief reliving the devastation as if I were seeing it for the first time.
Watching the destruction, I remember praying for those trapped in the buildings. As the first tower collapsed, followed shortly thereafter by the second one, I prayed fervently that each of those souls had a brief opportunity to cry out to Jesus before those buildings crumbled.
None of us ever knows the time, place or hour when Jesus will call us home. On September 11th 2001, 2,996 people met their maker quite unexpectedly. How many of those knew Jesus personally? How many cried out for the Lord as they jumped to their death, or were crushed in a disintegrating high-rise or were on an airplane plummeting to the ground?
On the day Noah and his family boarded the Ark, it was business as usual. People were going about their normal lives not realizing that the rain falling from the sky was the beginning of the end of life as they knew it.
Lot and his family fled Sodom and Gomorrah just prior to God’s destruction of the wicked cities. Right up until they left their home, it was business as usual for them.
When Jesus returns for His bride (the church), it will be business as usual as it was with Noah, Lot and the 2,996 people who died tragically on September 11, 2001. No one knows the day or the hour of the promised Rapture.
“And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot. People went about their daily business—eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building— until the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and burning sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Yes, it will be ‘business as usual’ right up to the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Luke 17:28-30 (NLT)
Jesus could return at any moment. We never know what life will bring. However, if Jesus is Lord of our lives, we don’t have to live in fear of the changing times or the unknown future.
Jesus doesn’t want anyone to perish. If you don’t know Jesus personally there is no time like the present. Say “yes” to Jesus and live with the certainty that no matter what the future holds … JESUS LOVES YOU and He alone holds your unknown future.
Blessings in Christ,
Kathy K.
