POSTED SEPT 10, 2021:
September 11, 2021 is the 20th anniversary of the day that changed the world. The attack against America on 9/11/01 by radical Islamist terrorists changed everything. It was traumatizing and demoralizing, with an estimated 70,000 people treated for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.(1) Almost 3000 people were killed and hundreds more wounded, as four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
The pain and trauma to many Americans will be magnified by the fact that Biden just handed Afghanistan back to those responsible. Four of Afghanistan’s new government leaders were actually part of the terrorist group that carried out the attack. They had been captured and imprisoned at Gitmo but were released by Obama in a trade to release an American deserter in Afghanistan. The four are now preparing to kill more Americans.
In spite of all this happening, God wants to steer you away from trauma to hope. There is a tree in my back yard that I have named The Hope Tree.
I gave it that name because it used to be dead – or so the previous homeowners thought.
“I remember talking with the former owner when we were considering purchasing the house. He told me that not only had the tree died, but he had cut it down. There was nothing left but a stump! It doesn’t get much deader than that!
“‘Then I put in the sprinkler system,’ said the man. ‘I placed one of the sprinkler heads next to the stump, and the tree grew back.’
“I stood next to him looking at the tree. This was not a wannabe tree consisting of two or three small sprigs, mind you, but a complete tree. Immediately, I thought about a Scripture where God talks about this never-say-die kind of tree:‘For there is hope for a tree when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground and its stump dies in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant.’ (Job 14:7-9)
Hope is to the heart what seeds are to the earth. Without hope, life is sterile, unfruitful. Without it dreams won’t be conceived; destinies won’t be realized. Hope is essential because it is the starting line, the genesis, the launch pad. It is the incubator where faith is formed: ‘Faith is the substance of things HOPED for,’ God tells us in Hebrews 11:1. If there is no hope for the future, there will be no faith to face it—let alone shape it.
“Never underestimate the power of hope! “The Old Testament word for hope has the connotation of a cord, used as an attachment; the New Testament calls it “an anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). Allow hope to become your lifeline, your stabilizer.”Our decree: The Ekklesia of Jesus Christ on the earth decrees that evil will not win, terrorism will not win, the ungodly will not win. God has already declared the winner: Jesus Christ.
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