Since April 2021, I have been following the protests in Myanmar, and the stories of human rights abuses by the military junta now imposing a “reign of terror” in that land:

“…they [protesters] feel compelled to take up arms against the junta’s[military] brutality. Since the coup, soldiers and police have shot dead more than 560 people, including at least 43 children, and more than 2,600 remain in detention. Other detained people have been found dead with torture wounds. State forces have also exhumed and dragged away bodies and beaten people on the streets; On March 28, they burned a man alive”.[i]

So read the Time article on Myanmar (also known as Burma) I came across last April.

Another CNN clip showed the news crew being granted by the military with an inside glimpse of the current situation in Myanmar (quite amazing given the regime’s hostility against media and journalism). I was reminded of journalists being taken captive by terrorists in other hostile territories. Their courage to inform the world of what’s happening there at the risk of their own security is undoubtedly admirable.

But even doubly admirable was the undaunted courage of the locals during the team’s filmed investigation. Some of them have flashed the three-finger salute, which has become the country’s symbol for protest. Others have approached the crew to let them know that they want democracy, under the very nose of the security forces escorting the news team. All this to gain a modicum of democracy they have had for a decade.

This was around April 2021 and things have made a turn for the worse since then.

I, too, am faced with my own personal “crosses” and battles. Still, I couldn’t quite dismiss the thought that I needed to do something for these people, or to stop these atrocities. I wanted to pray but I didn’t know how to start. “From whom much is given, much is required,” kept ringing in my mind. I felt like I have a responsibility to fulfill, some tangible action I need to take, since I live in more peaceful and freer situation. After all, says Rizal, “It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.”

For one thing, I can only point to divine retribution. These perpetrators, if they do not repent and turn to the Lord Jesus, faces eternity in hell. They will be facing punishment infinitely more painful that the ones they are perpetrating. That, for me, should give peace of mind.

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                Luke 12:4-5

What would Jesus do if He were here? How would He deal with such things? He certainly was no stranger to a life fraught with danger, from religious and even the military (the Romans). I am reminded of this verse:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

                                                                                                                                                                                Luke 13:1-5

Jesus did not even mention the brutality of Pilate in His response. It tells us that He was setting the sights of His listeners elsewhere. It’s as if He was saying that removing tyranny and abuse in this world is not God’s ultimate end, as He has revealed in His word. Yes, all corrupt and abusive authorities would certainly be put to an end, when Jesus comes in glory and power (Psalm 2). No, Our God has an eternal view in mind.

To quote Jerry Bridges, “Our greatest need is not freedom from adversity. All the possible calamities that could occur in this life cannot in any way be compared with the absolute calamity of eternal separation from God.”[ii]

God will be ushering in a kingdom all right, but not of physical or a worldly sort. It is rather one of the heart. For the heart has been enslaved by tyrant far more insidious and brutal: Sin. It is kingdom where people can place their hopes and trust in Jesus, and receive eternal life and Power in the here and now to conquer sin’s dominion in the heart.

And that is why we Christians work. We take up arms. But not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:11-12). Our God is marshalling us to a warfare with far reaching, even eternal, consequences. The stakes are infinitely higher.

I need to focus on what our Lord has commissioned me to do: on seeking and saving the lost (Matt. 28:18-20) And to carry on with my own battles in the everyday life, to run the race marked out for me, to fight the good fight of faith.

Corrie ten Boom, the writer of The Hiding Place, is my heroine of faith. During the Nazi occupation of Holland, she, and her family, who were Christians, helped and sheltered Jews who were being hauled to concentration camps. She too, was not a stranger to a life under a brutal military rule. Yet, her sights were not on overthrowing the monstrous regime, but elsewhere. They were set on a “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” The account reads as follows:

Back at the barracks we formed yet another line – would there never be an end to columns and waits? – to receive our ladle of turnip soup in the center room. Then, as quickly as we could for the press of the people, Betsie and I made our way to the rear of the dormitory room where we held our worship “service.” Around our own platform area, there was not enough light to read the Bible, but back here a small lightbulb cast a wan yellow circle on the wall, and here an even larger group of women gathered…

At last, either Betsie or I would open the Bible. Because only Hollanders could understand the Dutch text, we would translate aloud in German. And then we would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, back into Dutch. They were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the lightbulb. I would think of Haarlem, each substantial church set behind its wrought-iron fence and its barrier of doctrine. And I would know again that in darkness God’s truth shines most clear.” [iii]

I ask myself: Would I have been brave enough, if I were in her shoes, to read a Bible, much less hold a worship “service” knowing that being caught might mean the gas chambers? Yet I feel this is the kind of courage which God delights to honor. And if I may say, it was also their courage that shone the brightest amid so much darkness and evil. God wants us to be involved to advance His kingdom. He will in time take care of the oppressors and criminals, just as He laid waste Nazi Germany and the other oppressive rulers.

Joni Earickson Tada writes,

“Yes, I ache for my Savior to speed his return, but I am keenly aware that ‘the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient . . . not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9). If in all my afflictions I have tasted the goodness of God, how can I not share that same goodness with my neighbors? My Bridegroom would want that, and so I hurry his return, as it were, by giving the good news to as many as possible.”[iv]

I think about the Burmese people who carries on their own fight, already faced with the reality that outside help would not come and peace talks are next to impossible. I think of Corrie Ten Boom, who risked her own life to share the hope and promise from God’s word. I think about Joni Tada, a quadriplegic, who speeds the return of her King by sharing the good news to as many people as possible. Who am I to give up my own fight? My own cross pales in comparison to theirs, for sure. “Do not give up in doing good,” the apostle Paul exhorts the Galatians. We have our own battles to face, and my own battleground is my own circumstances, my here and now. I fight the battle to overcome fear, anxiety, lust, depression, hopelessness, worldliness, complacency, slothfulness, impatience, and a host of other evils which terrorize and brutalize my own heart (Romans 6).

My only prayer is that God would grant me the same courage being exhibited by the Burmese people fighting for what they believe in. I need to be more earnest myself to seek the help of a higher Power to fight my own struggles.

The Burmese are fighting for their earthly freedom, a cause that transcends their own self-interests. As should I. As should all of us. Because a life that is not consecrated to a “great ideal” is after all a “useless” life. It is “like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.”

What could be greater ideal than God’s agenda?

Resources:

[i] https://time.com/5951727/myanmar-military-protests-civil-war/

[ii] Jerry Bridges, Trusting God (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2008), 146

[iii] Corrie Ten Boom, A Hiding Place (Bloomington, MI: Chosen Books, 2006)

[iv]https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-my-quadriplegia-ends