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Windows Blown Out Or Open? Series
Contributed by Joseph Smith on Sep 8, 2002 (message contributor)
Summary: God’s mercy is available to us, whether we call on Him in disasters only or whether we are constantly in His presence. But how much more ready we would be for disaster if we cultivated His presence. A sermon for the 9/11 anniversary.
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(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
Of all the images which linger, a year later, of the events of
last September 11, none is more haunting than the picture of
people falling from the windows of the World Trade Center.
As the buildings burned with hellish intensity, bodies came
out of the windows and fell to certain death on the
pavements far below. Were they blown out of the windows
by the force of the explosions? Or did they break open the
windows intentionally, and throw themselves out, preferring
death by concussion to death by burning? I don’t suppose
we will ever know. There is no way to know whether the
windows were blown out by accident or were opened by
intention. Either way, however, men and women of all walks
of life, rich and poor, young and old, all religions and no
religion, had no choice but to throw themselves on the mercy
of God.
When your life is undergoing great stress, the mercy of God
is there for you, whether the windows are blown out or
whether they are opened intentionally. God is good, all the
time; and all the time, God is good. But how much light, how
much refreshment, there is if we will sit by the windows,
hearing what God might say.
The events of a year ago are coming back to remind us now,
aren’t they, of the stresses under which we all live? Since
the 11th of September we have felt panic, for fear that
terrorists might strike this capital city. Since the 11th of
September we have seen troops in Afghanistan, the stock
market tumbling, companies failing, jobs being lost,
bankruptcies climbing, and rumblings of war with Iraq. Some
of us in this congregation have felt the results in very
personal ways: you knew people who were annihilated, your
own job changed radically, your investments shrank. I would
guess that many of have made very important lifestyle
changes in response to September 11. And I would not be
surprised if the stresses of responding may be a silent killer
that will take its toll on us, some day. Who knows but what
some of us are so stressed, feeling that our security is not
what it used to be, that our very lives are being shortened?
What I want to speak about today has implications for
physical and emotional life as well as for spiritual life. I want
to open a window that may in truth save lives as well as
souls. I want to speak with you about prayer in times of
stress.
I invite you to consider: when your life is undergoing great
stress, the mercy of God is there for you, whether the
windows are blown out or they are opened intentionally. As
we said a moment ago, God is good, all the time; and all the
time, God is good. But how much light, how much
refreshment, there is if we will sit by the windows, hearing
what God might say. What do I mean?
Ken Medema is a wonderful Christian musician. Blind from
birth, he has lived a live of exceptional usefulness. He’s
composed many songs, and most of them have to do with
blindness. If you are unable to see, that one great fact takes
over your life, just as September 11 has taken over great
chunks of our lives. But Ken Medema has always been
determined that his blindness would not be his everything;
Ken says that Christ is his everything, and so he sings about
is faith. Years ago I heard him do a song on the story of
Daniel, chapter 6, at this prayer window. I want you to learn
a fragment of that song with me:
(Singing): “Sitting by the window praying, waiting for the
break of day; sitting by the window praying, hearing what
God might say.” (Repeat)
Consider who came to the window.
I
First, conspirators came to the window. Evil men with malice
on their minds watched Daniel day by day and conceived a
plan to harm him. Conspirators came to the window and
watched:
“[They] ... tried to find grounds for complaint against Daniel ... but
they could find no grounds for complaint ... [They] said, ‘We shall
not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find
it in connection with the law of his God.’”
And so they devised a plot against Daniel, these
conspirators. They persuaded King Darius to enact a law
that no one should pray to any god other than the king
himself. These men were jealous of Daniel; he threatened
them with his integrity. They did not really know where that
integrity came from; they knew only that they wanted to