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Question #3- How do I have a relationship with a God I cannot see, smell, taste, touch or hear?

I have learned much about the impaired connection I have with God through my experience with my son Micah who was diagnosed with autism in January 2005. Micah’s challenges are many. He focuses on things that are rather irrelevant while very important things calling for his attention are ignored. His world is very concrete. The abstract lacks meaning for him. Routines make his world easier and more manageable. Change, crowds, noise, lack of clear boundaries will soon send him into a fit of frustration because he just cannot process everything. But, above all, his ability to build meaningful relationships is severely hindered. Micah’s world is, for the most part, closed off from the “face-to-face” relationships that we would consider normal and healthy. Dr. Steven Gutstein, a clinical psychologist and autism researcher, explains the difference between relationships for autistic and non-autistic people in terms of “fluid systems” and “static systems” of communication. When I look at a relationship with an invisible God (Deut. 4:12, 15, 1 Tim. 1:17), I can see why we might resort to a static system.

Communication systems
Basically, every time two or more people interact, they create a temporary system. A “fluid system” is one in which the boundaries are not overly restrictive. There is a free-flow of communication. Communication is happening not just through the words themselves, but through body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, volume, etc… A fluid communication system is when you and a friend sit down at a Starbucks to have some coffee and shoot the breeze.

A “static system” is just the opposite. It is outcome-oriented. There are very clear boundaries; the movements of the relationship are very predictable, very choreographed. Standing in line at the bank is a “static system”. You come into the bank, stand at the back of the line, stay within the roped off aisles. When it is your turn, you step to the next available teller, and the teller says (on cue), “And how are you today?” And you say (on cue), “I’m fine, and how are you?” You hand the teller the bank slip, they make the transaction, and you step off to the side and go back to your car.

An autistic person, for whatever reason, is greatly troubled by a fluid system. They can learn a static system, but in a fluid system- what we would consider a real relationship, a “face-to-face” encounter- they really struggle to function. Micah can now ask verbally for a cookie or juice. But, he cannot share an experience with me. Nor does he seem to understand me when I say, “I love you.” In short, our relationship is imprisoned in the static, in the choreographed.

Our own spiritual autism
In my own journey of learning to help Micah “see my face”, I have begun to see my own impaired relationship with God, a “spiritual autism”- the clinging to routines, the confusion at what He wants or how He speaks, the breakdown of our “relationship”, the multiple distractions that I end up focused on.

In 2 Corinthians 3:7-18, Paul describes the life under two different covenants- the Mosaic (or “old”) Covenant and the New Covenant- as moving from confusion and disconnect to “seeing God” more clearly. At Far Hills Community Church, where I serve, I frequently ask the question of the people in my Spiritual Maturity class- “What do you mean when you say, ‘I have a relationship with God’?” After all, Christians are notorious for stating unequivocally that “Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship.” Fair enough, but what does that mean? The answers I get are often the predictable jargon we use as Christians:

· “I asked Jesus into my heart”
· “God is my co-pilot now”
· “I’m covered by the blood”


Unfortunately, when I press people about what they mean by this, I usually get the same statement with some futile sentence rearrangement:

“I asked Jesus into my heart.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you know- He lives in my heart now.”
“What, like literally? He is inside your chest?”
“Well no, of course not. I mean he lives in my heart figuratively.”
“OK, so figuratively speaking you asked Jesus into your heart. What does that mean?”
“Uh…well, He’s…in my…you know…heart.”

But, Paul describes it in terms of “eye contact” or perhaps we can terms the two contrasting relationships as a “static system” and a “fluid system”.

Old Covenant New Covenant

“That old system of law…began with with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face.” (3:7) “Shouldn’t we expect far greater glory when the Holy Spirit is giving life?” (3:8)

“We are not people like Moses, who put “But, whenever anyone turns to the Lord
a veil over his face so people would not see the glory fading away.” (3:13) “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, then the veil is taken away.” (3:16)


“And we all, who with unveiled faces,
contemplate (or “see”) the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into his image with
ever-increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord who is the Spirit.” (3:18 TNIV)

Paul shows us a people who cannot make eye contact (3:7); who cannot focus on the primary (3:13); who cannot fully understand (3:14-15). Under the Old Covenant and its inability to bring new life, the people settled into the routines of religion; into a “static relationship” with God. The structures set in place were, by nature, self-limiting. You did not come directly into the presence of God (unless you were the High Priest on Yom Kippur). You prayed towards a central locale (the temple). You observed these days, those dietary restrictions, this pattern of worship. Now, there was a lot of fluid built into the Old Testament worship as well (the psalms will testify to that!), but on the whole- The Old Covenant was a static system of relationship. Even in the New Covenant, the idea is that we are continually working to move out of the static and into the fluid as we grow in our “seeing” (“reflecting” or “contemplating” in some translations, but the contrast is between those who can and cannot “see” the Lord’s glory).

The residue of the “old” is still very much present! And if we think about what our relationship with God is really like, we will find that we maintain many habits of a “static system”.

· We pray like a person leaving a voice-mail instead of enjoying a two-way conversation.
· We read our Bible and memorize verses, but strain to truly hear God’s voice.
· We constantly struggle to know God’s will.
· We lock into routines and sometimes confuse the ends with the means.

More often than we probably care to admit, our so-called “relationship with God” filters down into an outcome-based rut, a futile search for REALLY seeing God’s face. Like Micah, we don’t make a lot of eye contact with God because we struggle to “read His face”. We tend to become distracted with secondary things because of our inability to focus and make sense of the mysterious. And the crowdedness of life, the noise, the rapid change is continuing to send interference into our attempts to pick up a signal.

What happened in the garden of Eden when human beings rebelled against their God caused us to experience a break in our relationship with Him; a disconnect that salvation in Christ begins to repair, but the effects are still very much present. The anonymous 14th century author of The cloud of unknowing described this state as,

“…this darkness…this cloud…you will feel frustrated for your mind will be unable to grasp Him and your heart will not relish the delight of His love.”[i] <#_edn1>

I think we see examples of this “spiritual autism” in virtually all of the encounters with God that the Bible records. In Isaiah 6:1-7, all Isaiah describes of God is the train of his robe and the angels around Him (he was averting his eyes). Or in Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel uses a lot of “something like” and “had the appearance of” when trying to describe what he saw. Moses begged to see God’s “face”, but was granted only His “back” (Ex. 33:18-23). Paul said that “we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12). Our spiritual vision, it seems, is blurred by a defect in our souls.

Growing towards relationship
Fortunately, just as many autistics can be trained to connect, we too can learn how to develop an actual relationship with God. Gutstein’s model for helping autistics emphasizes “experience sharing”, noting that experience sharing is essential to true connection. I wonder if we have learned static spiritual systems that are actually limiting our ability to grow in our relationship and our knowledge of God. Prayer and Bible study are absolutely crucial to our spiritual growth except in the case when they become static systems meant to keep things predictable and safe. I would like to suggest some alternate exercises in developing a “fluid system” with God.

1. First, cutting down on the interference!! Micah struggles to process and relate when he experiences a stimulus overload and we have found that if we isolate him for awhile- if at the store, we take him to the mini-van; if at home, then to a room by himself and one of us- then we can get him back to a place where he can re-connect. And what is true at Micah’s level, is true of our connect/disconnect with God spiritually!! This seems so obvious, except we stink so badly at it! Thanks to technology, we are accessible 24/7. We have an information overload from the Internet, 24 hour cable news programs, and the millions of books, magazines and newspapers being pumped out every day. In The curious incident of the dog in the night, an amazing novel by Mark Haddon and inspired by an autistic savant, this sensory overload for an autistic person is described as listening to a radio where the tuner is between two stations and both signals (and a lot of static) are coming in at once. In this state, there is no clarity, no melody- just cacophony, chaos, disorder. No wonder we find it so hard to hear God’s “still, small voice” to the soul!! Fluid connection with God requires being able to hear Him in the first place.
Francois Fenelon, in his devotional “Talking with God,” notes that

“God does not cease to speak, but the noise of the world outside us, and the noise of our passions within, prevent our hearing him. We must silence every creature, including self, that we may perceive the ineffable voice of the Bridegroom in the deep stillness of the soul…How rare it is to find a soul still enough to hear God speak! The slightest murmur of our vain desires, or of a love fixed upon self, confounds all the words of the Spirit of God.”



2. Read your Bible meditatively, not programmatically!! Part of re-training Micah is to help him listen and respond. If we get too programmatic, too routine, he is likely to simply predict the next step instead of listen to the words themselves and respond accordingly. A static system of Bible study is quite similar. We get so used to the routine that we know the answers before God ever has a chance to ask a different question. We stop listening because the routine tells us what to do next instead of the Person of God. Robert Mulholland states it like this:

“The moment you opened this book to read, a powerful set of preconditioned dynamics of perception went into operation. You are a ‘victim’ of a lifelong, educationally enhanced learning mode that establishes you as the controlling power (reader) who seeks to master a body of information (text) that can be used by you (technique, method, model) to advance your own purposes (in this case, spiritual formation).”

But, a fluid system would be to read the Bible and listen for God’s voice to speak through the words on the page. This means constantly asking God to speak and striving to place yourself under the mastery of the text, and not vice-versa! A fluid system means using the imagination to enter the world of the text, mulling it over in our heads, praying it back to God, taking time afterward to sit in God’s presence in silence and solitude. It’s a greater time commitment with fewer boundaries. It’s giving God the floor without pre-determining His answers.

3. Walk in obedient faith and watch for God’s responses!! One of Micah’s major struggles is learning flexibility in relationships instead of rote request and outcome. For instance, we spend a lot of time evoking verbal requests from him during his therapy time. We hold out a chocolate chip and when he reaches for it we tell him, “Say, ‘chocolate chip’.” Soon, he learns to stop reaching for the chip and say, “chocolate chip!” And as he learns to respond to us, he also begins to learn how to relate to us! Not every time will Micah get a chocolate chip just because he asks for one. Sometimes we will say, “Not now” or “later”. What we really want is for him to engage with us. There is nothing static about this relationship if we are building flex and fluidity into it. So too with our relationship with God in obedience and response!! God does not respond in a set, predictable way to our obedience in faith. Sometimes He says “no” or “not yet” or “not this, but that”. We need to be broken of a static-system obedience which says, “I’ll obey you, if You respond like this.” What He does do is take our steps of obedience and help us tune into what He is doing through His various responses. This is hard because we are moving from static obedience to fluid communion.

“We want to move closer to God, the source and goal of our existence, but at the same time we realize that the closer we come to God the stronger will be his demand to let go of the many ‘safe’ structures we have built around ourselves."

4. Take your experiences as opportunities to learn how God comes near!! Experience sharing is one of the hardest obstacles for an autistic person. Relationships are frozen in the concrete, in the literal. Micah tends to play around other children instead of play with them. His relationship with others is barricaded by the malfunction in his mind. We find ourselves in a similar predicament. We “play” around God, not with God.

Experience is so hard to interpret, primarily because as “spiritual autistics” we do not realize that it is God working through experience to develop a relationship with Him!! A man I mentor asked me what God was trying to tell him as he walked through some frustrations at his workplace. “Is He telling me to stay with the company, or to leave, or to jump into ministry right now?” Yet, none of the options my friend offered as an interpretation to his experience suggested that God may want to develop the relationship. “Do you find a lot of self-worth in your job?” I asked. I knew the answer was “yes”. “What if God isn’t trying to get you to take a new job [static systems tell you where to go next], but trying to help you find worth as His child?” Experience is God’s way of lifting our face to His face; getting us to play with Him, not around Him. I think John Ortberg is correct when he writes,

“Spiritual growth, in a sense, is simply increasing our capacity to experience the presence of God.”

Face-to-face
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then eye contact, the face-to-face, is a crucial element to relating to another person. Theories abound for why autistic people struggle with face-to-face contact. Whether all of the signals are too much information to process or because getting data from a facial expression is too confusing, eye contact remains a struggle for a person with autism. But one of the most exciting things early on in our work with Micah was when he began giving voluntary eye contact. It was something that caused our hearts to leap with joy as Micah starting looking at us and giving us one of his shining smiles. God’s work of restoration in our lives through Jesus comes from His desire to look at us looking at Him, knowing His love and care…and smiling. If 1 Corinthians 13:12 tells us that our spiritual walk is like looking through a darkened window, then 2 Corinthians 4:6 fills in the rest when it tells us:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”, made His light shine in our hearts to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (NIV)

God’s Spirit is in the process of re-engaging “eye contact”. And in our growing out of the spiritual autism that has paralyzed our capacity to know God, Jesus Christ has shown us the face of God…and he is smiling.

• The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. by William Johnston; pub. by Doubleday, 1973. p. 49

• Fenelon, Francois Talking with God, modern English version by Hal M. Helms. Pub. by Paraclete Press, 1997, p. 56

• Mulholland, M. Robert, Shaped by the Word, Pub. by Upper Room Books, 1985, 2000. p. 19.

• “Nouwen, Henri, “Letting go of all things”, Sojourners May 1979, p. 6 as quoted in Invitation to a journey by M. Robert Mulholland, pub. by InterVarsity Press, 1993, p. 106.

• Ortberg, John, God is closer than you think, pub. by Zondervan, 2005, p. 25

   
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