Читать книгу Conversation with God - David C. Wilson - Страница 13

Our return from the Christmas break in Wales was to a situation that had worsened further, and this centred upon the business premises we occupied at that time. Seven years after opening our office, we had been persuaded by our eloquent accountant to join him and another (bookkeeping) business, in renting a large Victorian house. The stated intention was the joint operation of a “financial services centre,” by our two resident businesses and which would involve a kind of symbiosis, in which each firm would actively introduce business to the others. What actually transpired was very different, and eighteen months on from that decision very little new business had come our way. As the recession of the early nineties deepened, the atmosphere in the premises changed, and we realized that our role was a very different one to that discussed at the outset. The truth was that we were viewed simply as subtenants, intended to provide a useful subsidy towards the high rent of the property, and to bring an air of “busy . . . ness” to the place as a result of our much larger, established client base. Our offices were on the second floor, fully two flights of stairs removed from the ground floor reception desk, which was manned by the accountancy staff. Resentment, it seems, had been building up because of the need to sort the high volume of mail we received, and also because most of our visitors were insurance office inspectors requiring direction up the stairs to our offices. But a much more sinister reason lay behind the poisoned atmosphere which prevailed upon our return to work that January.

On the first day back I discovered that during our short, holiday absence, our offices had been entered, and the computer server had been turned off. Although this might seem inconsequential, we had been advised not to turn the machine off, because to do so (especially in those early days of office computing) could cause hard disc failure through what was called “cold booting.” Confrontation with my antagonistic landlord now seemed inevitable and duly arrived one hour later. During that encounter I was advised that I had no rights to privacy, especially so, since my rent payment was (ten days) overdue. I realized that this heated exchange had been set up to raise this very issue of a missed rent quarter day, and the heinous crime of taking a Christmas holiday in such circumstances. If I had expected sympathy on account of Chris’s illness I was to be disappointed, for in that same exchange she was accused of fouling the shared ladies toilets, and afterwards, it took us a full week to piece together the full import of what was going on. Throughout the previous year, Chris had been dragging her emaciated frame past reception, up those stairs and into our office under the gaze of our landlord and his staff, and they had been frightened by what they had seen. Fear, it turned out, was the motivating factor for all the antagonism we were receiving, and the name of that fear was AIDS. Chris’s mysterious affliction had been labeled in ignorance, and she had been blamed for some unconnected incident in the ladies toilets, because of her anorexic tendency to use the toilets more frequently than is ‘normal.’ Events moved rapidly from this point on, and by the end of the week the toilets had been segregated on the basis of ignorant fear rather than gender, whilst the heating was cut off pending our payment of the rent. Such an irrevocable breakdown in inter-office relationships seemed to offer no prospect of an end to these frustrations, and our forced vacation of the premises seemed inevitable.

Every day, in the privacy of the bathroom I had been praying, praying for an end to this insoluble, and now worsened situation of trying to carry on working at the office. In circumstances where one’s very spirit is being sapped by the hopelessness of continual illness, I prayed for help as I set my plans to vacate the offices. The first answer to prayer came in the form of a visit from a man who had just set up in the business of office relocation. It was a quite literal ‘Godsend,’ he dealt with everything from telephones to office furniture removal, and by the middle of February we were out of that place. Importantly, the actual move was achieved in complete secrecy across a single weekend—in order to avoid unpleasantness and perhaps further harassment—and we were able to leave those offices on Friday night, beginning work in our new location on Monday morning. On that morning, I found myself working in the huge attic room of our home; exactly the same place where in Victorian times, a previous owner of the house had operated his silk weaving machine. If our evacuation from the office in ‘Dunkirk’ style had been a second answer to prayer, then the wrath of our erstwhile landlord, seeking legal restitution for his perceived losses, would require further supplications to our new Helper.

Help Arrives

I can’t remember those early prayers much, except to say that they were blunt, brief, and contained a lot of pleas for help. Although, I obviously prayed for help with our office problems, my predominant recollection of the time is of constantly praying for help for Chris, but without having any idea of the form such help could, or would take. Later on, I discovered that the number of people praying for Chris at about this time, eventually reached nine hundred or so, and amongst the first of those people, one in particular played a key role. Within the family, Chris had a special rapport with her sister Margaret, whose concern for Chris’s predicament had prompted a discussion with a close friend. Margaret’s friend had a Christian sister, who, on hearing the story, became ‘burdened’ with the need to pray for Chris’s healing, and requested a meeting with, or visit to Chris—both of which were denied. Unable to meet with Chris, and finding her prayers for healing to be unsuccessful, she changed the tack of her prayers, praying instead for local Christians to contact Chris. At about the time of our relocation of the business, that contact came via a Christian friend of Chris’s youngest sister, Janice. On hearing Chris’s harrowing tale, Janice’s friend, who was a member of a small (healing) prayer group, initially asked if the group could pray for her. Permission was given for this, but when a few weeks later the group asked to pray with Chris, her consternation was clear, and to consternation was soon added surprise, when she found her erstwhile agnostic husband actively encouraging her to meet these people. The agnostic, of course, professes to have no knowledge of God, and even the acknowledgement of theism, which had been required prior to joining my ‘fraternal fellowship,’ did not change that. Chris knew nothing of my secret vow in Harlech, and thought I was still an ignoramus (Latin equivalent of the Greek term: agnostic). Nevertheless she agreed to a first meeting with the group, whilst I thrilled with delight at the sheer improbability that this contact could ever have come about.

Conversion No. 2

In other words, I was delighted and amazed at the reality of answered prayer coming in the form of an actual healing prayer group, all four of whom worshipped at a local Baptist church. As a new (secret) Christian of only six or eight weeks standing, and not having had any contact whatsoever with other Christians, I didn’t even know that such things as healing prayer groups existed. Although I could not know it, these were, of course, significant times in Christian circles, following as they did, the John Wimber/Vineyard Movement visits to Britain. One of the John Wimber ‘tours’ had included a visit to a north of England church, which was pastored at that time by the current principal of Spurgeon’s College, London, thereby engendering a fairly local Baptist connection and influence. In the perfect hindsight of a theological training, I now recognize the Wimber influence on this group of sincere, believing Christians, who for two years became a rock of support for Chris.

The group were brimming with enthusiasm and were avidly reading a wide selection of the popular, charismatic books that circulated at the time, especially those with an emphasis on healing. Looking back, it is clear that they anticipated fairly early success in the form of physical healing, but in this, they were to be largely disappointed, instead fulfilling another, very much needed function. Apart from the first two or three meetings, the group met with Chris at our home where the chief result of their prayers, was the indescribable feeling of peace that she experienced. The peace of God (Phil. 4:7) was in fact guarding the thoughts of Chris’s mind (heart) from the psychological troubles of her anorexia. Again and again, Chris met with the group simply in order to experience that peace, and it was this that, in part, ultimately led to her commitment to Christ. It was about four weeks into these meetings with the prayer group that I disclosed to Chris my own prior commitment to Christ, and how their involvement in our lives could only have been the result of prayer. Easter was early that year, and on April 1st. Chris committed her life to the LORD, later often remarking on the appropriateness of ‘April fools day.’ Interestingly, in her prayer of commitment she too struck a deal, for she had recently formed a friendship with a social worker, and asked the LORD to maintain that friendship outside its current professional confines. The prayer of commitment had been prayed from the heart privately, but in a subsequent meeting, the prayer group insisted that this was ‘ratified’ by being repeated aloud, adding in a more stylized line or two of ‘normal’ commitment prayer. In the following weeks, as we began to read our bibles, we felt it was incumbent upon us to meet with other Christians on a fairly regular basis, and so we became members of that same local Baptist church. But throughout, we never lost the specialness, which had derived from having made personal, almost unaided, commitments to the LORD.

Requesting the “Gifts”

From the outset of their Christian commitments, Western Christians suffer from almost insurmountable difficulties in their relationship with God, which derive entirely from their cultural heritage. Indeed, the whole emphasis of our culture rests upon the cult of the individual, whose prosperity and welfare are the mainspring of the policies of all the political parties, of whatever hue. Individualism is now to all intents and purposes, the single most virulent philosophy driving our society, holding metaphysical hands with those other modern philosophies, pluralism and humanism. The ‘Enlightenment’ which arguably began in the seventeenth century, and which has bequeathed huge advances in material prosperity, has also brought about an intellectual ‘sea change,’ profound in its consequences. In essence, the perception of self has changed, and the increasing sense of selfhood has been understood as the transformation of ‘public man’ into ‘private man,’ or psychologisation. The psychologisation process is, in effect, the internalisation of public, corporate man—once exemplified by external indications of rank such as clothing and apparel—into the modern individual known today. All this has consequences for Christians, who respond to their social nurturing by unwittingly placing undue emphasis upon their individual relationship with God, and this is particularly exemplified in their prayer life. It must be emphasized here, that the concept of an individual relationship is quite different from the concept of a personal relationship, and it remains one of the misfortunes of modern society, that this distinction has become so blurred. When acknowledging that Christians have a personal relationship with God, it is necessary to understand that this was intended to be lived out in a corporate environment, and personal prayer also took place primarily within that same environment. New Testament prayer was fundamentally a corporate activity, often to be found within households, that is, amongst (and between) families, and the fundamental unit of the family still remains the relationship between husband and wife.

In response to this shared heritage of social nurture as an individual, I prayed alone—as did Chris, although we did at least ‘compare notes’ from time to time. Amongst the prayers that we each prayed simultaneously yet separately, were prayers asking the LORD for specific gifts of the Spirit. We requested these gifts at the behest of the prayer group, who were imbued with the belief—then current in some charismatic circles—that one could request any combination of the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12. In other words, it was a kind of “pick ’n mix,” and I remember requesting the gifts of wisdom and prophecy—not being too terribly interested in such things as administration—and I remember Chris saying she had also requested prophecy. In the event, we did not receive any giftings, at least, as we then understood them to be, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized the truth of I Corinthians 12:11—God gives gifts as He determines!

Darkening Storm Clouds

If the evacuation of the offices had been our ‘Dunkirk,’ then we were now firmly ensconced inside ‘Fortress Britain,’ and our enforced mid-lease move soon began to have its consequences, as our erstwhile landlord and accountant engaged himself in furious legal activity. To begin with, we owed him a four-figure sum for the last set of accounts he had prepared, and having refused outright our offer of instalments, he began a civil action in the county court to recover the full amount. He sent his partner to represent him at the trial, and we both presented our cases to a surprisingly young presiding judge. The case was defended because I had counter claimed for the few hundred pounds owed to us on a separate matter by their firm. Needless to say, I had prayed fervently for help in this, my first encounter with the civil justice system, and was amazed when the judge ordered us to go into an annex room, in order to work out a repayment programme by instalment! Our counter claim was rejected by the judge, who regretfully pointed out that the monies owed to us, were owed by a different company belonging to our former landlord, and who then recommended that we begin a separate action.

Unfortunately, this action over accountancy fees was only the first skirmish in a long series of legal battles, and fairly soon after its resolution, our antagonist brought an action in the high court. Since we had left our subtenancy approximately half way through, we were being pressed for payment of eighteen months rent and our share of the utility costs, together with the associated legal costs and interest. In all, this amounted to a quite preposterous five figure sum, which, as is often the case, bore no relation to reality. Everything had happened so quickly, and rather than remain under what had become an oppressive, feudal regime at the old offices, we had executed a tactical withdrawal to a seemingly more defensible position—but was it? I knew that my tormentor had many connections with the local law firms, and I therefore decided to use a solicitor based some distance from the town. The defense I presented to our solicitor was based on the initial agreement to form a “financial services centre,” and our erstwhile associate’s failure to honor that agreement by not introducing new financial products sales leads to us. We had suspected that our adversary was placing financial products business elsewhere, but initially, we had very little in the way of hard evidence for this, and my interviews with our solicitor were very unfulfilling. Indeed, he seemed to spend most of the meeting trying to dissuade us from fighting, and my main recollection is of passing the time quite enthralled by his white, well-manicured hands. Nevertheless, we left the battle in what we thought were also his capable hands, only to receive a rude awakening one morning in the late summer.

When the bailiff knocked at the door we didn’t know what to do, but were able to successfully protest that the case—so far as we were aware—had still not yet been resolved. Fortunately, the bailiff offered to return within a week to allow us the time to find out exactly what had transpired, and this despite holding an order to seize our goods. A telephone call to the solicitors office left us in a panic, for it seemed that our solicitor had simply failed to turn up at a court hearing—presumably an application for summary judgement—and in his absence, the judge had upheld the claimant’s case. We were in the doldrums of despair, since we were not only facing an implacable enemy who was besieging us with weekly visits from the bailiffs, but in addition, now had to contend with a negligent solicitor. Naturally, we prayed, and were consoled by the perception from the LORD that “your enemies are my enemies,” indeed, as new Christians we were constantly surprised by how often this ‘nice’ New Testament God was expressing some very Old Testament sentiments. In this knowledge, we took steps to relieve the intolerable pressure we were under, by employing another firm of solicitors, making sure that this time they were ‘up to the job.’ To this day I still do not know how to evaluate a firm of solicitors, but having been ‘bitten’ by a small firm, I decided to use the biggest firm I could find, even if this meant a trip to the big city. The policy seemed to pay off, for I was soon dealing with a smart, young lady solicitor, who, although requiring much exhortation to do so, prosecuted our adversary to a standstill over the next eighteen months. Before our enemy was vanquished, however, I joined in one of Chris’s sessions with the prayer group, where I was left in no doubt that the LORD wished me to forgive my adversary face to face for the pain he had, and was still inflicting on us. A meeting was duly arranged, and I proffered my forgiveness together with a proposed four figure settlement of the claim, only to be met with his uncomprehending gaze and an outright refusal to compromise. The episode had been an early one amongst many during these post conversion years, an exercise in humility, and of going the ‘extra mile’ in the face of a dogged hostility that showed no pity.

The Regime

Throughout this embattled time, Chris remained as thoroughly anorexic in behavior as ever, and was once again nearing a life-threatening five stones in weight. In the early summer, a serious asthma attack had resulted in an emergency, ‘middle-of-the-night,’ admission to hospital, requiring a stay of a few days in order to stabilize her condition. It was abundantly clear to the emergency doctor that he was dealing with a very emaciated lady, whose medical history of self-harm gave cause for concern, and when Chris was told he was consulting a psychiatrist colleague, she quickly discharged herself. Before doing so, however, she was able to observe a curious phenomenon, across those few days of recuperation spent in a medical ward.

The great danger with asthma is the increased strain on the heart, and this was of special concern given Chris’s advanced anorexic condition, so much so, that her heart was monitored remotely. Information would be transmitted to the ‘cardiac room,’ whose staff were able to alert the ward supervisor by telephone, in the event of an emergency. As she lay there ‘hooked up’ to the cardiac room, Chris would often pray, and as she did so, she found that this invariably brought the nurses rushing to her bedside to check on her condition. In all, this must have occurred some five or six times, leading to the seemingly inescapable conclusion, that her bodily functions of heart rate and blood pressure were being affected by her prayers. Clearly, this wouldn’t be the first time that the Holy Spirit’s attendance in response to prayer has had physiological consequences, with the first recorded incident occurring at Pentecost to the ‘drunken disciples’ (Acts 2:13,15).

On her return home, Chris simply carried on where she left off, with her daily food intake amounting to little more than two rounds of burnt toast and a banana. It wasn’t the quantity of Chris’s food intake, however, that impressed itself upon one of her friends from college days, but was instead the erratic nature of her meals, which seemed to hold the key to a remedy. Our ‘angelic’ friend felt this so strongly, that she offered to spend a two week holiday with Chris, regularising that food regime. Chris’s friend, Sheila, was an avid bird watcher and animal enthusiast, and so it seemed ideal that the two of them should holiday in a nearby valley, renowned for its wildlife. I was able to rent a farm cottage for them at the heart of this partially wooded valley, and whilst I continued to work from home, they would spend the days driving the country lanes and watching the foxes, deer, and herons. We quickly established a routine, and most evenings I would travel the four miles or so to the cottage, after which we would all pop over to the local pub for a drink. But it was during the daytime that most headway was made, as Sheila—a very forceful character—imposed a routine upon the day, ensuring that Chris rose for breakfast time, before they left to buy a paper, to shop or perhaps watch the heron fish. Lunchtime was equally regularized, and could either be spent in the local pub or back at the cottage, before an afternoon’s activities of various kinds soon brought teatime. It was a very exhausting regimen for Chris, who, even with Sheila’s gentle persuasion, was still consuming less than five hundred calories per day, every one of which she counted. Nevertheless, the training worked and at the end of two weeks Sheila was exhorting me to maintain the regime she had begun. Strangely, Chris cooperated in all this, and it seemed puzzling until I realized that the very regularity permitted her to calculate her intake all the more accurately. In order to maintain Chris’s cooperation, I acquiesced when she requested elaborate salads comprised of fresh herbs, sesame seeds, and celery, knowing all the time that these meals were nutritionally almost valueless. The regime of three, not quite ‘square’ meals a day, was maintained however, and we began to use our much neglected dining room—the most pleasant, indeed the cosiest room in the house—to take ‘time out’ to enjoy our meals together. This re-introduction of the social element to meal times was perhaps the most significant feature of the new regime.