wfn.org | Taiwan Church News Editorial: Reality-Check

["enews" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>2958 Edition

>November 3~9, 2008

>Editorial: Reality-Check

As I drove by Taiwan’s highway No.7 one night, I saw two women  sleeping just beside the road. They were obviously drunk and sound  asleep. Beside these two women was a four or five year old boy crying  loudly and tugging at one of the women’s hand, presumably his  mother. He had a runny nose and his face was covered with tears. His  cries and tugs intensified as his terror grew. Because I had to run some  errands, I left the scene after making a brief stop. When I returned  around noon time, I noticed that the women were still sound asleep. I  looked for the boy and saw that he was leaning against his mother and  sound asleep as well. I figured that he finally tired himself out  crying. The trio lay beside the highway, totally oblivious to the  traffic around them.

The Taiwanese government is acting much like the two adults I described  above. After all the partying and drinking, it has forgotten its role as  an “adult” and left a helpless child to face a dangerous  situation alone. Though the child may wail and his cries resonate all  across the land, the mother remains self-centered and sound asleep.  Though nearly 600,000 people rallied in Taipei and low public approval  ratings flashed across the screen, the Ma administration is still  dreaming of a “one-China market”.

In Habakkuk 1:2-4, the prophet Habakkuk cried out, “How long, O  LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?  Or cry out to you,  "Violence!"  but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice?  Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there  is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and  justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice  is perverted.” Paraphrasing these verses, we ask: How much longer  must Taiwan suffer? How long must we wait on God before we receive what  He has promised? Though we are speechless in desperation, we must still  move on boldly in faith for the Lord has said through Habakkuk that  “the righteous shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4).  Christians should not be discouraged by the current turn of events. If  we cannot sustain our determination and concern for Taiwan, our fate  will be similar to the boy above and we will soon find ourselves sound  asleep and oblivious to reality.

Taiwanese who claim to be neutral and stand in the sidelines are like  drivers who see the scene I described in the beginning and drive by  pretending to be blind. To this day, I still regret not doing more. As I  write this, I can hear strains of a native song coming out from a nearby  church calling me to stand up and wake up. Thus I urge my fellow  brothers and sisters to emulate the spirit of the prophet Amos who said:  “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a  never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24)