The remarkable true life story of Peter Newman (Part 16)

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The Place of Rest

Many of my lessons have been learnt through pain, trial and tribulation; some self-inflicted. Barbara and I have experienced many hardships in the call of God: hunger, bankruptcy and having all our possessions stolen are but a few. Many times we have almost fainted by the way. We are given to understand by the word of God that the trial of our faith is precious to Him. I can't say that I have found it precious to me at the time. Nevertheless the end result of these trials has always revealed in greater depths the faithfulness of God.

It may often seem to the onlooker that my life is free of trials and tribulation now that I have found the place of rest which for sixteen years I laboured to enter. I found it by returning to the simplicity of the gospel and resting on God's word. This has taken away the stress of living; it is the stress and strain that wears most people down. Much of the tension was caused when I tried to live up to a standard that others demanded of me and struggled to convince everyone that I had arrived at the place of rest. This became filthy rags in the eyes of God but, praise His name, God had the answer even to my filthy rags.

However, God has continued to give me the opportunity of praising Him under difficult circumstances: I'm not immune to trials and pressures. I'm sharing this with you, not so that you can commiserate with me, but that you may be encouraged to press on towards the prize of the high calling in Jesus.

We have in our family two daughters and one son, Jonathan, who is the youngest. We have seen the healing power of God working in the lives of our daughters and raising them up from sickness. When our son was born it was discovered that he had a problem with his kidneys. He was operated on when he was four years old and for a couple of years he was well. But then he began to deteriorate rapidly, till by the age of eight he was in chronic renal failure.

Hundreds prayed for him, and still are praying. During the course of my ministry I have prayed for many children of Jonathan's age and God has healed them, yet we have had to watch him suffer through the years. There were times when we panicked, when we felt the heavens like brass. All my experience over the years, the memory of all the wonders God has performed, have screamed at me, "What about your son? Where is God in this?" But then the Holy Spirit has risen up from within my innermost being and has begun to glorify and praise the name of Jesus.

Much advice has been given. Some people have suggested that I should not pray for the sick until God has healed Jonathan, and I have often felt like following their advice. Some have told me that I must be in sin or pride or out of the will of God. I believe that suggestions like that do not come from the heavenly courts, neither can they be found under the New Covenant that God made through Jesus Christ to all those that believe. Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. I believe that sickness and anything that would seek to destroy a man's faith in the word of God comes from Satan himself or from very ill-informed people.

We have, however, learnt many lessons through Jonathan's illness and I would like to share one with you.

In prayer one day God spoke these words to me:

"Peter you don't really love Me." "I do, Lord!" I replied.
"No, Peter you only love Me because."
"What do You mean `because'?" I asked.
"You love Me because I found you; because I saved you; because I healed you; because I called you."

At this point I was beaten.

"Lord, show me Your love!" I cried.

Several months later I was in Great Ormond Street Hospital sitting by my son's bed. He had tubes up his nose and into his arms after yet another operation. Weeks of tests, reports and counter-reports had driven us almost to despair. We had prayed and so had almost a thousand others during those weeks. Yet in the end we had to watch them wheel him into the operating theatre to cut him open for "further investigation".

I had sent Barbara away to try and get some sleep, and so was by myself as Jonathan recovered from the anaesthetic. His first words when he came round were, "Dad, pray," and he began to whimper because of the discomfort he was in.