BreakPoint with Charles Colson
Commentary #011128 - 11/28/2001
"Jesus, Help Me": The Faith of Todd Beamer 


"I don't think we're going to get out of this thing.
I'm going to have to go out on faith."

It was the voice of Todd Beamer, the passenger -- and
Wheaton College graduate -- who said "Let's roll" as
he led the charge against the terrorists who had
hijacked United Flight 93, the one, you will
remember, that crashed in the Pennsylvania
countryside.

The whole world knows how brave Beamer and his fellow
passengers were on September 11. But this week we
learned more fully what buttressed that bravery:
Faith in Jesus Christ. Todd died as he lived, a
faithful evangelical believer.

In an article titled "The Real Story of Flight 93,"
Newsweek reveals gripping new details from the actual
transcripts of the now-recovered cockpit voice
recorder. "Todd had been afraid," Newsweek relates.
"More than once, he cried out for his Savior."

After passengers were herded to the back of the jet,
Beamer called the GTE Customer Center in Oakbrook,
Illinois. He told supervisor Lisa Jefferson about the
hijacking. The passengers were planning to jump the
terrorists, he said. And then he asked her to pray
with him.

As Newsweek relates, "Beamer kept a Lord's Prayer
bookmark in his Tom Clancy novel, but he didn't need
any prompting. He began to recite the ancient litany,
and Jefferson joined him: Our Father which art in
heaven, Hallowed be thy name."

As they finished, Beamer added, "Jesus, help me." And
then, Beamer and his fellow passengers prayed a
prayer that has comforted millions down through the
centuries -- the prayer that David wrote in a time of
great anguish: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want . . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

And then the famous last words: "Are you guys ready?
Let's roll."

We now know from the cockpit voice recorder that
Beamer and other passengers wrestled with the
hijackers and forced the plane to crash into the
ground, killing themselves but foiling what was
believed to have been the hijackers' plan to fly
Flight 93 into the Capitol or the White House.

As Christians, we know that God can bring good out of
evil. In Todd Beamer, the world witnesses a faith
that held up in the extremity of fear. A faith that
is even now comforting his widow and two young sons.

Lisa Beamer told NBC's Dateline, "You know, in the
Lord's Prayer, it asks us to forgive our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us." As Todd
prayed this prayer in the last moments of his life,
in a way, Lisa said, "He was forgiving those people
for what they were doing, the most horrible thing you
could ever do to someone."

It wasn't Todd Beamer's job to fight terrorists. He
was just a passenger who along with several others
did what he didn't have to do but foiled a terrible
evil that might have been done to his country.

As Flight 93 hurtled towards destruction, Todd Beamer
could not have known that his quiet prayers would
ultimately be heard by millions -- that the story of
his last acts on earth would be a witness to the Lord
he loved and served and a lasting example of true
heroism.


For more information:
Karen Breslau, Eleanor Clift, and Evan Thomas, "The 
Real Story of Flight 93," Newsweek, December 3, 2001.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/662607.asp?0dm=N24SN

The Todd M. Beamer Foundation website is at
http://www.beamerfoundation.org/.