Walking along the water this week, watching the ducks glide past under the watchful eye of a few Canadian geese, I found myself thinking about the recent anniversaries of 9/11 and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Both attacks were aimed at people of faith — many of them genuinely God-fearing Americans, a good number of them Christians. And both happened because someone, somewhere, rejected the simple idea of “live and let live,” convinced instead that disagreement is reason enough to kill.

Since that walk, I’ve continued to spend this last week still sitting with the lessons of 9/11, and more specifically, 9/12 — the day after. I keep coming back to the people on those planes who knew their lives were in danger, and used whatever time and connection they had left to warn the people on the ground about what was coming. Firsthand details, delivered from the inside of terror as it was unfolding, so that others could be ready. I am truly incredulous at the courage it took to turn that fear into action.

That’s what keeps drawing my mind to the Gospel.

Those who truly know Christ — who have felt His peace and His grace settle into the actual texture of their lives — are often driven to share that with the people around them. Scripture puts it plainly: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14). Somebody has to say something. Somebody has to make the call.

I count myself part of the body of Christ, and instead of living on the inside of terror, I get to live on the inside of grace. I want to share what I know with anyone I can reach. That doesn’t mean preaching at every person I meet — it means being “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks… the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). Ready, not relentless. At every opportunity I recognize, I try to let that light show through, whatever my circumstances happen to be, because we’re told plainly to “let your light shine before others” (Matthew 5:16).

Without God’s grace in my life, day in and day out, I think I’d be swallowed up by the terror and chaos that seems to be growing everywhere right now. I’ve watched people all over social media finding their way to Jesus lately, and it’s been incredible to witness. It’s as if God is calling His children in, letting them know the time is drawing closer to deciding, one way or another, where they stand.

Because “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Living in fear and anxiety is a choice. So is living in grace.

Here’s what I want you to hear if you’ve felt anything stir while reading this: that pull is not nothing. If you’ve felt God calling to you — in a quiet moment, in a song, in a conversation you can’t shake, in the ache of knowing something’s missing — don’t wave it off. We only get so many chances to answer that call before our time runs out. I don’t know if the last days are next week or the next millennium, and honestly, neither does anyone else. But I know they’re coming. That much is certain.

So don’t wait for a more convenient moment. If those passengers could turn their fear into a warning for people they’d never meet, then I can turn what I’ve been given — the peace I didn’t earn, the grace that keeps finding me — into something I pass along too. That’s the lesson of 9/11 and 9/12 for me this year: use what you know to get the word out to whoever needs the heads-up, and if you’re the one being warned — listen. Heed it. The call is real, and the door won’t stay open forever.