#104 My Lai (2sep06)

I had fainted, unless I had believed......
....Wait, I say, on the Lord'
Psalm 27:13-14

My Lai was this hamlet in Vietnam where United States soldiers massacred as many as 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War on the morning of Mar 16, 1968.
What was more tragic was the cover-up by many who could have make this wrong right, yet not just dithered but helped in the whitewashing of this war crime and if not for the persistence of a few, none will be the wiser.

There are times in our lives, when we felt ourselves like those My Lai villages, being put to the shredders, and our very sense of well-being and emotionally comfort, being torn asunder. Worst, we believe that we are rightly an innocent victim of the unfair and sinful perpetrators of our woes.

But are we truly perfect in the Lord's eyes??

'Teach me thy way; O Lord....'
Psalm 27:11

Bangkok for many is a wonderful place for the senses and our many lusts, be it shopping, the sun, or the smog, or other percuniary interests best left to one's fertile and sinful imaginations.

The year 1998 was the first real effort(albeit with some reluctance) on my part to revisit my Christian faith, something that I have consigned to the far corners of my secular life for 24 years. 1998 was also the year that I started to visit Bangkok actively for business.

In our weaknesses, we see God. Yet, it is in this wonderful land of a thousand smiles and numerous wats, but very little of the symbols of our Christian faith, that I have some of my most enlightening and uplifting experiences with God.

This must probably be my 70th plus trip to Bangkok, and I must confess that beyond the Hyatt Erawan Hotel and its vincinity, I truly have no sense of where I am.
Positively, it means that I am very likely to have partake of very little of the many sights and sounds of the alluring Bangkok nights, but negatively, it means I am probably not a man with a great sense of direction.

Yet, thankfully, in our walk with God, it is God who leads, not you, I or anyone else.

'....Thy face, Lord, will I seek'
Psalm 27:8

God is whom I have been seeking to follow all these past years, since He gave me my defining moment with Him that one night in Bangkok.
There are many times after that great uplift, that I do find myself hitting a trough, but He has always brought me back up.
Yet, this whole of Monday was the first time that I find myself in this great depressed state and physical discomfort, that somehow, God doesn't seem to be able to bring me out of my miseries.

'In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eye'
Judge 21:25

As I struggled with God this Monday night, He brought me to this verse. This verse is an admonishment for me. I am reminded that
- am I truly innocent in the Lord's eyes.
- Have we I truly seek Him with all of my heart, or was it just part of my heart.
- Have I been totally obedient in His will or were there qualifiers and variations to my obedience.
- Have I really been doing things His way, or in reality it was in my own way, but dressed up as His

'How can you say, "I love You" when your heart is not with Me? Thou hast mocked Me these three times...'
Judge 16:15

Truly, I have sinned ever so often. For often I am not willing to truly let go and let God lead. My vision of Him and my obedience is often clouded by my fears, my greed, my pride, anger and lusts and my own misguided and deceitful understanding.

'O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself;
It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.
O Lord, correct me, but with judgement. Not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nohting...'
Jeremiah 11:23-25

What is right, what is wrong is often a function of the benchmarks set by both the individual and the society's that he is in.
To some, there might be justification that the My Lai's victims could be Vietcongs or their supporters, to others, the ravages of war has turned men into senseless savages.

Thankfully, it is God whom we should look to, it is God who will lead us.
Prayerfully, you are not like me who ever so often do allow my own finite and sinful understanding to lead me into these great quagmires of doubt, pain and disobedience.

Yet, if you do indeed find yourself in this conundrum of our self making, do look to God, for He will lead you out. But you must want to be led.

'For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey My voice, yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked everyone in the imagination of their evil heart....'
Jeremiah 11:7-8

Monday was hell at its worst, but darkness is really the absence of light.
When we place ourselves in the light of God's love, life has never been more blessed, and for me after I found my peace with God, it was truly that way in more ways than I can ever imagined the rest of this past few days.

My Lai, has a similar tonal sound to a phrase in the Hokkien dialect. It means in Hokkien, "not to come"
Like many, we often prayed for ill fortunes not to come by our way.
Yet, truly it is often us who refused to obey God's call to come into His presence, for He asked us to come into His presence, but we often in our hearts, proferred a "My Lai" to Him


God Blesses

Eng Hieang