Topic 11 – Who Is God When He Helps Us In Relationships?
Claire Lasher-Meade in Malawi
Our small Christian Fellowship meetings on Sundays were offered Claire’s ministry, who was visiting Malawi and who was associated with Dennis Bennett of the book “Nine O’clock in the Morning” that was popular at that time. The book dealt with the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit in modern times.
The leadership of the Christian Fellowship met to discuss the offer. Some did not want Claire to preach because they felt a woman should not do so in an open meeting. One man, I will call him Pete, was especially vocal on this issue. Rather than cause ill-feeling, we reached a consensus to contact Claire and ask her to pray during the Sunday meeting rather than to preach, and to meet with the leadership the evening before the service. Claire agreed.
At that preparatory meeting, Clare began by asking if she could pray for us. As she had been asked to pray during the Sunday meeting ahead, we could hardly refuse. She began to pray, and then looked directly at Pete and said, “The Lord has shown me that you have a problem in your throat that has been there a long time. I’ll pray for you now,” she told him, then slapped her hands on his head and prayed before he had time to comment.
“How’s that now?” she asked.
Pete swallowed a few times, then confirmed, “I’ve been healed. Definitely. It’s wonderful.” He was like putty in her hands afterwards, as I suppose we all were to some degree. Our relationship with Claire had been changed by God from uncertainty and even in one man’s case rejection, into acceptance and confidence.
By another consensus, we then asked her to preach as well as to pray at the Sunday meeting, which Claire did very effectively.
During her short time in Blantyre, Claire’s ministry had some marvellous results in people’s lives, including a woman with terminal cancer being totally healed.
In our family our eldest, Terry, had been sickly without obvious cause. Claire said, using the Holy Spirit “Word of Knowledge”, that Terry had lactose intolerance. We were a family that drank lots of milk, which must have been lowering his level of health. Subsequently, his health improved markedly as he limited the amount of milk he drank. While to this day he is not fond of milk, he can tolerate small amounts.
Claire’s testimony shows that:
- God wants right relationships to prevail in advance of effective Christian ministry. Satan, on the other hand, is always sowing doubt and division at the level of Christian leadership to discredit and fragment God’s work.
- God’s Holy Spirit can change preconceived opposition to a woman’s ministry, no doubt because that ministry is His and not really hers.
- God’s ministry can bring consensus based on His will, whereas previously wrong consensus prevailed that was based on our ignorance rather than on what God wanted.
- God’s Holy Spirit ministry illustrates God’s love and care. Exercised correctly, it can heal divisions.
Ivan and Brenda Rudolph in Malawi
Our marriage struck some stormy shoals in Malawi despite our fundamental love for one another.
Brenda was disgruntled and I felt, perhaps wrongly, that I unfairly bore the brunt of her criticism.
We reached a stalemate, forgive the pun, where we could not see a solution.
Brenda wanted us to seek counselling but I was too proud and also did not want others to know we were having problems, in part because of our Christian example within the community, in part because as a teacher I needed to be respected. In small communities it is amazing how “private” information gets out and circulates.
“Ivan, we have to get outside help. Things aren’t improving.”
“I’m not interested in counselling.”
But Brenda had decided counselling was our way forward and brought it up regularly.
After one particularly stormy argument I declared, “There is only one person on earth I would ask to counsel us, and that is Pastor Bill, and of course that’s impossible because he is in South Africa.”
That very same afternoon, totally unexpectedly and unannounced, Pastor Bill Anstruther trudged up our driveway. I was stunned and could hardly believe my eyes!
“We have begun an African work in this region,” he told me, “and I have come to run some teaching meetings for the leaders. You don’t have a phone in the house, so I found out where you’re living and have popped in to see you.”
Well, uncomfortable as it made me feel, I then knew I had to ask Bill to counsel us. Anything less would have been a rejection of God’s dramatic reaching out to us, to help us in our problems.
He gave us several bits of inspired advice but one that has had fruitful practical applications to this day in our lives is:
Don’t beat each other over the head with the problem. Instead, face the problem together.
When applying this divine advice and when discussing the problem, in practise avoid the word “YOU” as much as possible and instead use “WE” – and then together probe and search for solutions; even if they don’t come quickly. WE at least would then be working as “team Rudolph” at finding working solutions together.
After some hours. there was a breaking of my hard feelings. Consequently, I committed myself to restoring proper relationship, and so did Brenda.
God had given us a fresh start by bringing Pastor Bill, the only one on earth I would have listened to, with such extraordinary timing and inspired advice! And while we have had some difficult times since, none have approached the gulley we were trapped in right then. And we remain in love today and happier now than during certain earlier overstressed times.
Ivan and Brenda’s testimony shows:
- God is on the side of marriage and relationships. in our case, the intricate planning whereby He restored our marriage is mind-blowing. This capacity of God to know in detail and in advance what lies ahead, and to utilise that knowledge in His planning, is extraordinary and beyond rational comprehension or explanation.
- God supports marriage counselling, at least by skilled Christians.
- God is relational and is involved in our lives and circumstances, and will act sometimes even when not asked.
- God has designed marriage. It is to teach us about loving someone else other than ourselves, and usually someone very different to ourselves. It is meant to have its challenges.