Leadership That Begins on Its Knees

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was not a soldier. He was a thirty-two-year-old account manager from Cranbury, New Jersey — a husband, a father of two boys, with a third child on the way. He was active at Princeton Alliance Church. Nothing in his background prepared him for what unfolded aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

When hijackers seized the Newark-to-San Francisco flight, Beamer and fellow passengers learned through phone calls that other planes had already struck the World Trade Center. They understood their aircraft had become a weapon. Someone had to lead.

But before Beamer rallied passengers to storm the cockpit, he did something remarkable. He asked GTE Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson to pray with him. Together, over a crackling phone line at thirty thousand feet, they recited the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 23. Only then did he turn to his fellow passengers and lead the charge that brought the plane down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania — almost certainly saving the United States Capitol.

Joshua 1:9 commands, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Notice — God's command to Joshua came before the battle, not after. Courage was rooted in the Lord's presence, not in Joshua's ability.