Days like 9/11 wakes us up. When the ground we’ve been walking on or building on or taking for granted shifts underneath us and we snap out of our routine day-to-day experiences, we have to stare at something we don’t want to. And we may not live to see another 9/11 in our lifetimes, but I know we will have trouble. So how should we think about these things?
I believe that God did something that day. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know exactly what his purposes were. But if we believe God is sovereign, then we believe God allowed 9/11 to happen.
Sovereignty means he is totally in authority. He ordains everything that happens. He appoints it or he decides to allow it. It doesn’t mean he approves or condones it. Every funeral we’ve ever been to he knew would happen. Every disaster, every hurricane, every war.
I think a lot of times we say God is sovereign, but we don’t actually think like it. I’ll think, “God is sovereign, sure. He’s big and up there and it’s hard for me to comprehend, so I don’t really think about it, or I forget about it and so it doesn’t impact everyday life and how hard I work on this paper or how I interact with my coworkers or how I spend my money.”
If we don’t think God is sovereign, then we don’t think he has authority over every area of his creation, and we start compartmentalizing God away from parts of our lives: our jobs, our relationships, our — whatever. We isolate that part of life. We put it in a box. We put God in a box.
Every one of us has sinned against God but God did not stay up in heaven, he didn’t stay in a box. He came down to our level and did something for us that we could never do.
Isaiah 25: “He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.”
1 Corinthians 15: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
Jesus Christ has defeated death. God is not only sovereign over all of life, He is sovereign over all of death.
My prayer is that God would bless the United States and that we would be good stewards of that blessing in the way we live our lives. That we would remember this day in history but also remember the God who is sovereign over history and is faithful to work it out ultimately for good. I want to dedicate this September 11 to him, and trust him, come whatever may.
Khan is a senior studying religion. He served in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012.
Editor’s Note: Khan gave this speech at the 9/11 ceremony held by Hillsdale College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom on Monday.