Radio 4’s Open Book has a regular feature called The Book I’d Never Lend in which reasonably well known personalities talk about a book that means so much they would never part with it. I’ve often wondered what I would choose if put on the spot. Too many to mention perhaps. Near the top of the list though would be two books by David Watson: I Believe In The Church and Discipleship. The former explores the importance of the people of God in the purpose of God and the latter what it really means to be a follower of Jesus, seeking to apply His teaching to our daily lives. Both had a considerable impact on me and over the years I’ve returned to them time and again as the well-worn nature of my copies testify.
You don’t hear much about David Watson these days but there was a time in the seventies and eighties when he was one of the best known Christians in the UK. An Anglican vicar, he was given leeway to develop an evangelistic ministry which took him all over the world. He gathered a team of actors and musicians whose gifts were a support to his powerful preaching.
It was when he was preparing for a major teaching and preaching tour of America in 1983 that he was diagnosed with cancer of the bowel. Subsequent surgery revealed that the disease had already spread to his liver. Eleven months later he was dead at age 51.
During his illness he wrote a book entitled Fear No Evil in which he tells his story but also explores the issues that confront Christians when faced with personal suffering. It is very honest about the struggles he is undergoing particularly as he is part of the Charismatic tendency in the Church which would see healing as part of the everyday experience of Christians. This is summed up in a telephone conversation David had with his friend John Wimber, the American evangelist. He said: ‘I don’t accept this cancer and I believe that God wants to heal you.’ Whatever you make of this time went on and healing was not happening. David was therefore faced with the challenge of suffering in the purpose of God. How can He allow this? What possible good can come of this? Doesn’t God heal now as he did in the early days of the Church?
Reading the book again as a fellow cancer sufferer there is so much I can connect with not least the emotional turmoil that often has to be worked through. One particular burden David carried as time went on was the awareness of hurt he had caused other people in the past and hurt he himself had received which had made for uneasy relationships. He made reconciliation a priority as far as he was able. This leads him into some areas that I personally would not be entirely comfortable with but his commitment to be at peace with those with whom he had been at odds is inspiring.
For a long time I have thought of broken relationships as being part of the spectrum of suffering that we all have to endure. In the same way that physical and mental disorder are experiences we have to accept and might never be resolved so broken relationships might never be resolved this side of eternity. Think of David and Saul. 1 Samuel 24 tells of their encounter in which David tries to be reconciled to Saul. Saul confesses that he has treated David badly and reveals his awareness that David will one day be King. It is a powerful moment and yet in the end the two go their separate ways and there is no reconciliation. David is still on the run and Saul ploughs his desperate furrow to the end.
Sometimes we have to accept that broken relationships are part of human experience and like other manifestations of suffering may never be resolved. That does not mean that we cool on our commitment to ‘live at peace with everyone.‘ Paul says: ‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’ (Romans 12: 18) Things can go wrong but make sure you are not the cause.
I believe this ‘inner healing’ became more of a priority for David Watson than physical healing as the end drew near. In the final pages of Fear No Evil he writes:
‘(God) showed me that all my preaching, writing and other ministry was absolutely nothing compared to my love-relationship with Him . . . God also showed me that any ‘love’ for him meant nothing unless I was truly able to love from my heart my brother or sister in Christ.’
This is the double thrust of Christian teaching that will enable us in whatever circumstances to fear no evil.
