Our Hope Lies Not In This World

The "New" World Trade Center

I'm sitting at the World Trade Center in New York City next to the 9/11 Memorial where the two towers once stood. In their places now are two haunting holes - pools where the buildings once rose from the ground to heights hardly imaginable. If you've been here, you know how it feels to stand here and watch the water flow into these two huge squares, seemingly gone forever as are those who were lost that day - along with all of America's innocence, really. 

The North Pool

It invokes the most amazing feeling of smallness in this world - helplessness - if your faith is in things of this world. 

The South Pool

I just watched a leaf float completely over the South Pool - swaying this way and that, up and down - but never falling in. 

It drifted across, completely at the mercy of today's breeze, finally coming to rest in a tree on the opposite side just feet from the waterfall. 

Quite indicative of how these resilient New Yorkers - and the rest of America - were in the days, weeks, and years following those heinous attacks on us. 

We were floating adrift, wondering what had just happened and what had our world come to? But we didn't fall in. They - we - made it to the other side of the tragedy and have come to rest in a very different place. 

We will never forget neither those who were lost on that day, nor the way of life we took for granted before that. 

But one thing does not change no matter what the evil of this world tries to make us believe - and that is that our hope should not be resting in the things and people of this earth. Our hope and faith should rest in eternity. Beyond this rubbish. 

No - I cannot explain why this world is full of evil and why our mighty God allows it. I just know that this is not my last stop. If this world were perfect for us, we would have no reason to have faith in eternity and God himself. Our faith would be lying in the perfection of this earthly realm - and would be conditional upon God's making it wonderful for us every day. Faith is not conditional upon what God can do for us today, but what he has already done for us for eternity. Our God is an eternity-based God. 

Like that leaf, I will come to rest someday on the other side. I will hug my dad and have so much to tell him. Or maybe I will just lie there with my head on his chest like I did when I was little - and like I did the day I learned he would be leaving us soon two years ago tomorrow. The day he told me, "It's okay, girlie," and I looked back up from his chest and replied, "No, it's not," and just bawled. 

Where is my God through all of this hell on earth? Preparing my home in eternity. 

Eyes on the prize, people.