Wait For It!

Then the LORD answered me: “Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it. For the vision awaits an appointed time; it testifies of the end and does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and will not delay. (Habakkuk 2:2-3)

Habakkuk the prophet complained to the Lord with the same words we can use today: “How long, 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 wrongdoing? 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.” (Habakkuk 1:1-4) What the evil and wicked people do today is not new. They did it before and they will do it again. Tyrants rise and take advantage of their power and position. But those past cruel and oppressive rulers, where are they now?

The ten years of Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was the most intense persecution and repression of Christianity in China. Churches were burned, priests were tortured and martyred. China’s Catholics were targeted as enemies of the state. If one visits the Xishiku Church in Beijing, one will see a well tended site. That was where an elderly priest who refused to denounce his faith was buried alive by Chairman Mao’s radical Red Guards in 1966. Priests were forced to trample on crosses as Red Guards chanted, “Down with God!” Persecution like this was not uncommon during those days as Mao vowed to destroy any vestige of Christianity, or any religion. 

But where is Chairman Mao now? While, by some estimates, China is on track to have the world’s largest population of Christians by 2030, more Christians than the US! Truly God has a vision for China! God has a vision for the Philippines! He promises us, His faithful people, “For the vision awaits an appointed time...though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and not delay.”