The latest on the Myanmar earthquake and Hamas hostages

An earthquake struck the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar on Friday, killing at least 1,700 people at this writing and injuring over 3,400 others, with more than 300 missing. The tremors collapsed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads. Rescue efforts are being severely hindered by blocked roads, collapsed buildings, a lack of medical supplies, and the persistent conflict that has plagued the country for years.

In other news, Hamas has agreed to release five living Israeli hostages in order to resume a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. If agreed to, the new limited ceasefire arrangement could coincide with Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that began Sunday and commemorates the end of Ramadan.

Why I did not want to write this article

I am writing on these two stories, even though I know not as many of our American audience will read them as if I were addressing topics closer to home. Myanmar is nearly nine thousand miles away from my home in Texas. The Israel–Hamas war has been going on for so long that its latest developments are less compelling than stories that directly affect us.

Even though I have led more than thirty tours to Israel and count Israelis among my best friends in the world, I understand such compassion fatigue.

I know we are intended to love all people as God loves us, that “love” is a “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) demonstrating our love for our Lord and his love through us (cf. Matthew 22:37–39). I also know that a good test of character is to see how we treat people who cannot treat us well in response. I can pray passionately for those suffering in Myanmar and the Middle East, but I doubt they will know of my intercession and respond in kind.

Despite these facts, it’s still hard to care as much for those we don’t know as for those we do. As a result, while I have followed the stories I reported today, I had no intention of focusing on them in an article. Then I read a quote from theologian and novelist Frederick Buechner that changed my mind.

“Just for a moment a hint of melody”

In The Alphabet of Grace, Buechner writes on discerning meaning in the everydayness of life:

You get married, a child is born or not born, in the middle of the night there is a knocking at the door, on the way home through the park you see a man feeding pigeons, all the tests come in negative and the doctor gives you back your life again: incident follows incident helter-skelter leading apparently nowhere, but then once in a while there is the suggestion of purpose, meaning, direction, the suggestion of a plot, the suggestion that, however clumsily, your life is trying to tell you something, take you somewhere.

Or random sounds: the clock’s tick-tock, voices outside the window, footsteps on the stair, a bird singing, and then just for a moment a hint of melody.

I think Buechner’s “suggestion of purpose, meaning, direction, the suggestion of a plot” is an insight that applies not just to the circumstances of our personal lives but also to those of our larger world. Thanks to digital media, global news is more available to us today than ever before. One way to redeem this cacophony of information is to look for meaning wherever it can be found, whether such purpose is obvious or not.

Here we need an insight from another spiritual genius whose work has greatly influenced me over the years. In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers notes:

In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it. . . .

Imagination is the power God gives a saint to posit himself out of himself into relationships he never was in.

Taken together, Buechner and Chambers encourage us to read the global news searching for insight through intercession. If we “posit” ourselves in the stories we read and pray accordingly, we find a “suggestion of purpose” that directs our minds and empowers our prayer.

And we find ourselves able to say with John Wesley, “The world is my parish.”

Seeking insights through intercession

Let’s apply this concept of “insight through intercession” to the unfolding tragedy in Myanmar. As I “posit” myself there today, I find myself among the rescuers searching through rubble for survivors. I feel the urgency of their frantic efforts. I sense the sacrificial power of their compassion.

And my heart is directed to other “victims” closer to home—the lost who need to understand the gospel, those deluded by the lies of secularism and materialism, prisoners trapped by the shackles of “private” sin and public disgrace. As my friend John Stonestreet says, “Ideas have consequences; bad ideas have victims.”

Then, as I “posit” myself into the hostage crisis in Gaza, I feel the desperation of their families in Israel. I sense the frustration of the people over this horrific tragedy as it continues to disrupt and consume their national narrative. I imagine the hopelessness and despair of Palestinians victimized by their own radicalized government.

And again, my heart is directed to other “hostages” closer to home—those held captive by the undeserved pain and suffering of our broken world, those enslaved by their sins and the sins of others, and those who feel lost and forgotten.

As I find myself praying for suffering souls in Myanmar and in the Middle East, my heart is warmed for my neighbors and the privilege and urgency of loving them as I love myself. My “insight through intercession” empowers and compels me to be the presence of Christ in their lives wherever I can, however I can.

And as the world becomes my “parish,” my “parish” starts with the next person I encounter today.

“You have not lived today until . . .”

John Bunyan insisted:

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”

I understand his insight in a new way: I have not “lived today” until I have prayed with insight for those God has placed on my heart and then responded to my prayers with personal ministry. Only then am I sharing and thus experiencing the abundant life Jesus intends for me (John 10:10).

The same is true for you.

Will you have “lived today” when this day is over?