Faith Works 9-11-21

Faith Works 9-11-21

Jeff Gill

Prayers that need to continue

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I am, when all is said and done, just a preacher.

My military experience is minimal, my global awareness is that of almost anyone else with access to cable TV and the internet, which is to say . . . minimal. I've not served in the State Department or with international relief agencies nor earned an advanced degree in geopolitical affairs.

Twenty years ago, I'd just turned forty, my family back again in Ohio after a sojourn in West Virginia. If you'd asked me what I thought I'd be doing or where I'd be in twenty years, I probably would have had an answer or two for you, and it all would have been wrong, as such confident predictions usually are.

Then 9-11 happened, and we watched the events of the day, and I led a community worship service that night, and at the end of September 11, 2002, I knew one thing for sure: things were not going to be the same in the future.

And it turns out much of what I thought that night and in the next week would change did not. I could make you a list. But many things that were true before 9-11 didn't change after an interim period of confusion and worry; some things that really should have changed continued in their unhealthy and unhelpful ways.

If there's anything that's worrisome and dispiriting on this twentieth anniversary of 9-11, it's what does not seem to have changed. Our national ability to stand up democracies overseas, our focus as a country on what our role can and should be on the international stage, and at home our consensus about where political divisions end and ideals and aspirations bring us together. Am I alone in feeling as if we're as muddled on those things now as we were then?

But as a person of faith, with some commitments and perspectives that go beyond the year or the era or even my nation, I can say with confidence, with clarity, and with some enduring hope that there are things that do not, and should not change. 

We've heard many calls through the years to keep our troops overseas in our prayers. Well, U.S. Central Command still needs our prayers; while they no longer have a presence within the borders of Afghanistan, their troops are on guard in the face of dangers in a wide assortment of places we might have forgotten about in the focus on the recent withdrawal.

And praying for our veterans? If you have people in and around your life who have served in the "Global War on Terror" or GWOT as it gets militarily referenced, reach out to them. Personally, as well as prayerfully. The spectacle of the last month has been profoundly wearing on all of them.

Within Afghanistan, it's more true than ever: Christians (and yes, there are Afghan Christians) and Christian aid workers have dealt with a wide array of challenges and threats and brutality and death all along. Truly, they need and deserve our prayer covering right now.

As a nation, we've said we still have a humanitarian interest in that nation, and the region. I've known folks who work with U.S. Agency for International Development; USAID will be heading back into Kabul soon, quietly, working on humanitarian assistance as they have for more than twenty years. Pray for them and that work.

I trust you all remember Malala, Malala Yousafzai. Her story continues, though she is no longer inside the country (she graduated from Oxford last year, in fact). The women and children in Afghanistan continue to need our prayers and support, in ways I trust we will see open up in coming days, if all too slowly. How can they learn and grow and find a path to peace? Can we help without becoming part of the problem? Something to pray about.

Then there's the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming out of Afghanistan, both in the well-publicized airlift, and also fleeing across the borders east, west, and north, all needing our prayers, as well as those who greet and host and help them. Not so much to the south, and the homeland of the Taliban movement.

Oh, and something else not changing? I should pray for the Taliban. That they find peace, and justice, and wisdom, and a saving faith. If you don't know why I would say we should pray for the Taliban on this twentieth anniversary, go read Matthew 5. It hasn't changed, either.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's trying to change where he should and stay faithful where he should endure. Tell him how that's working for you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.