Some have said God is not mad at America while others say its a judgment of God on a backslidden nation. There are a host of other opinions in between.

Here are my brief thoughts.

Judgment can be altered or slowed up to a point. Ninevah's judgment was delayed but not stopped, it happened in a post generation but the whole city repented to gain this reprieve (full scale revival). There is a time when God's cup of wrath is full when no prayer will stop the judgment, it must be poured out.

Jeremiah was told no longer to pray for this people as God would not hear. The fact that Flight 93 was delayed a few minutes tells me God is still in control and all things work together for good for those who love Him and it was His mercy in this later flight that gave those inside time to respond in faith by keeping the plane from hitting the terrorists and Satan's final intended target. Note that it took sacrifice in order to save lives.

Thank God for His mercy -- it is everlasting (Jer.9:1) Oh that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

When our family prayed at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, We prayed that those who died did not die in vain, a phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.We did not realize the impact. We later went and prayed at Gettysburg at the spot Lincoln added “under God” to the final draft of his speech also. The first speaker to speak at Ground Zero in NYC on 9/11/02 - opening the memorial at the precise minute of the first plane hitting the towers one year ago read the Gettysburg address. We as a nation need to uncover the wells of Abraham (Gen. 26:18) as Lincoln did during the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln, "Gettysburg Address," 19 November 1863

Four-score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

(Bold & italicized mine, MDR)