I have seen reference here to some of the posts on witnessesonline.com (WOL) in response to the horrific events of yesterday, September 11, 2001.
Please allow me to express a few different thoughts.
First of all, what happened yesterday was, just as President Bush described it, “despicable.”
In making this attack, the attackers showed complete and utter disregard for human life. Those who commandeered the plane, knowing their ultimate goal, had no consideration for their own lives. Additionally, they had no regard whatsoever for the lives of the innocent people aboard those planes. It’s one thing to give your own life for something you believe in, it’s another to think you have some right to take others with you.
In terms of numbers, even more frightening is their disrespect for the lives of those in the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center towers.
And it seems clear that those who planned this were highly skilled, and knew exactly what they were doing. The fact that the planes they hijacked were headed to the West coast, and were thus heavily laden with fuel, as just one example. It would seem that the precision with which they were flown into the buildings was calculated. It also seems likely that the group had input from professionals who factored in the effects that amount of jet fuel would have on the steel of the building once it caught fire.
Prayer, Love and Concern – For Whom?
I would like to address briefly one thing about the response from some of my fellow JWs, though, which disturbs me.
It’s the matter of whom we pray for, and are concerned about.
I have seen much written about praying for our brothers, fellow Witnesses who were affected by these events. In and of itself, that is certainly a good thing, and perhaps a natural response. After all, I suspect most people, when they hear of something like this, are first concerned for family members and close friends. This is only natural. And, since Jehovah’s Witnesses consider themselves a worldwide brotherhood, or family, concern for their own is not necessarily surprising, or inappropriate.
However, love, care and concern should then extend much further than that. It should extend to others, really all who were affected.
So, let’s pray for everyone who was negatively affected by this tragedy, not just fellow Witnesses. There are scores of grieving individuals out there right now, suffering indescribable agony. It’s true that many likely are not active worshipers of God. Likely, some affected don’t even believe in God.
So what?
Perhaps some expressions of the Apostles Paul and John are worth pondering:
(John 3:16) “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.(Romans 5:8) But God recommends his own love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
(1 John 4:10) The love is in this respect, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent forth his Son as a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins.
If God waited until people accepted him before reaching out to them, perhaps we’d have a basis for doing the same.
But he didn’t. So why should we?