Posted September 10, 2026
I was a sophomore in high school when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I remember sitting in math class when the rumors started to spread that something had happened and just not believing it was true. We spent the rest of the day alternating between teachers who attempted to continue their lessons as planned and those who just turned on the TV to watch the news.
I imagine my experience is pretty similar to a lot of people in my generation. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I realized how different that experience—as well as my understanding of the twenty-five years since—was from the generations above me.
You see, I have vague memories of the world before 9/11, but they’re mostly of basketball games, birthday parties, and other childhood events that seemed consequential to me but far less so to anyone else. I knew the world existed beyond my little bubble, but I understood very little about it. As a result, my view of how the larger world works is almost exclusively born from experiences that came after the terrorists attacked.
That’s left me with a very different perspective than those who remember when that kind of violence was what happened in other countries, but not in this one. And that’s even more the case for the generations younger than me.
I understand 9/11 was significant—particularly for those who were personally marked by the loss of family or friends in the attack—but it’s just one of many data points that have defined how I see the world. In the twenty-five years since, I’ve also experienced two recessions, the longest war in America’s history, a global pandemic, and at least three different times when World War III was supposedly about to start. Now we’re facing the threat of another forever war in Iran and the growth of an artificial intelligence that, just this week, experts are once again claiming could “kill all humans.”
Granted, many of those events have direct ties to what happened on 9/11, but each has been just as—if not more—significant in how I see the world than what happened on that day.
To be clear, I’m not saying that’s right or the best way to interpret the last two-and-a-half decades. But it’s the reality for almost half of America’s population and will only become more common in the years to come.
I bring all this up because these differences shape my expectations for the world, as well as my hopes and even my prayers in ways I had not previously considered.
Over the last few weeks, the news has been filled with people describing what happened on September 11, 2001, and their experiences on that tragic day. At our ministry alone, Dr. Mark Turman has two excellent interviews to that effect in recent episodes of the Faith & Clarity Podcast, and Dr. Jim Denison released the first in what will be a series of articles on how to find hope for an uncertain future this morning.
Many of these perspectives go back to the sense of loss people feel for the pre-9/11 world, and they do a remarkable job of explaining how the world has changed in ways that are both personal and profound. And, in the process, they tend to speak with such longing for a day in which America was the dominant force for good, and its people could live in relative safety. As a result, their hopes for the future often seem tied to recapturing some semblance of that existence.
And I just can’t get there, even though part of me wishes that I could.
I can’t really remember a world without the imminent threat of war, or where you get much time to breathe between global calamities. In the series, Dr. Denison does a great job of reflecting on why that is. And it’s worth noting that, at least historically, the last twenty-five years are not the anomaly in all this.
A big part of why I don’t have much hope for returning to a pre-9/11 world is that the decades before the terrorists attacked are the historical outlier. For most of human history, the sense of safety and security that 9/11 shattered has been more of a dream than a reality. So, I don’t expect that we’ll get back to it anytime soon, and that’s alright.
God has called us to steward his creation and to make this world a better place wherever we can (Genesis 1:28). But there’s only one person who can restore it to what God created it to be, and it’s not any of us.
Understanding that this world will remain fallen and life will be hard until Christ returns to make things right brings a sense of freedom, reminding us that we were never meant to find our hope in anything this world can offer.
The lost around us will, because there’s not really anywhere else for them to look. But we must not join them in that mistake.
In Matthew 24, the disciples ask Jesus to give them a clue as to when the end-times prophecies he’d been teaching about will come to pass. In response, he warns of “wars and rumors of wars,” famines, earthquakes, persecution, and false prophets (Matthew 24:3–14). It’s important to note, though, that he describes these events as “birth pains” rather than a clear indication that Christ’s return is imminent (v. 8).
The distinction is significant because Jesus did not tell his disciples—or the billions of Christians who have walked this earth since—when precisely he would return. Rather, his warnings were meant to give us hope and encouragement in the midst of these troubles.
Far too often, we look at wars, persecution, or other calamities and wonder if this war will finally be the war that signals his return. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with hoping for heaven or longing to see Jesus come back. However, if “no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” when that day will be, then I don’t think we’re going to figure it out (Matthew 24:36).
God’s goal is that when the world seems like it’s falling apart, his people will not be. Instead, we should continue to share the gospel and proclaim that Jesus is Lord as we prepare for the day when Christ returns and removes all doubt about the truth of that statement.
So, as we reflect on tomorrow’s twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 and ponder how to honor those who lost their lives, as well as the heroes who saved thousands more, remember that our hope was never supposed to be in a return to the world that existed before the attacks.
Our hope is meant to be in Jesus.
Is yours?
“Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment ‘as to the Lord.’ It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received” (his emphasis). —C. S. Lewis
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