Fluid with God: Overcoming Our Spiritual Autism and Growing in Our Relationship with God

By David J. Lynden

The relationship with God is not a clich, but it does present its challenges. What if the struggle to connect with God has less to do with His invisibility and more to do with our spiritual autism- our confusion with God and subsequent retreat to religious routines? What if God is trying to connect with us much like a parent works to connect with their autistic child? Through the cover-to-cover story of the Bible, practical aids and his own experiences with his son, Micah, the author offers a pathway towards genuine eye contact with God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512739459

David J. Lynden

David Lynden, Senior Pastor at Redeemer Church (EFCA) in Milwaukee WI has served as a pastor, Bible professor and spiritual mentor for over 20 years.

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Copyright © 2016 David J. Lynden.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3946-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3947-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3945-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906597

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/28/2016

CONTENTS

Section 1    The Stop and Start Connection with God

Chapter 1    Did I Just Connect with God? Or Is That Just Me Talking to Myself and Telling Myself It Was God?

Chapter 2    Static Shock

Chapter 3    These Small Hours, These Little Wonders

Chapter 4    An On-Paper Relationship With God- What Makes You, Me and Mother Teresa So Frustrated With This Communion With God.

Section 2    What We Lost With God

Chapter 5    Wonder Begins … and Then Crashes in Ruin

Chapter 6    Remembering Paradise on the Trampoline

Chapter 7    Cultivating a Spiritual Awareness

Chapter 8    Fluidity

Section 3    God Rebuilds The Lost Connection

Chapter 9    The Exodus Feedback Loop

Chapter 10    Experiencing God in our Everyday Need for Hope

Chapter 11    Shattering and Rebuilding

Chapter 12    Cultivating Fluid Hope

Interlude    God’s Story as a Winding, Curvy Road

Section 4    The Psalms as God’s Big Musical

Chapter 13    God Sings Us a Story

Chapter 14    Cultivating Fluid Worship

Section 5    Redemption: The Puzzle Pieces Begin to Form The Big Picture

Chapter 15    Seeing The Big Picture

Chapter 16    Jesus Addresses Our Spiritual Autism

Chapter 17    The Fitting Hero

Chapter 18    The Divine Counterpunch

Section 6    Restoration: Coming To Life and Restoring Full Eye Contact

Chapter 19    Leaving Kansas, Entering Oz

Chapter 20    Five Simple Questions About This Resurrection:

Chapter 21    Breathe

Chapter 22    Relationship With God in Letter Form

Chapter 23    Cultivating Fluid Listening

Chapter 24    Cultivating Fluid Community

Chapter 25    You Are Here … and One Day, You Will Be There

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) Copyright © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.

DEDICATION

For my son, Micah—who truly embodies the counterintuitive idea that in the things this world judges as weak and unlikely, God’s power is most demonstrably displayed.

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. (Micah 7:18, NIV)

INTRODUCTION

This whole book started with little moments working with my son Micah. My wife Desiree worked tirelessly to get as much help for him as she could. She set up training with autism specialists, assembled a team of people to help with therapy, talked to schools, investigated programs, read up on everything she could get her hands on. We wanted so desperately to break through and give Micah a typical life. I remember days trying to connect with my son, trying to get him to look at me, speak to me, understand me. One day, it struck me like a thunderbolt: this is a window of insight into me and God! I began thinking about what autism did to a child; how it insulated him or her away from others, especially the parents who want to connect. It was an awakening for me. The reason God was so hard to connect with was not because of Him. It was because of me. The more I watched Micah—thinking through how we went about connecting with him—the more I started to think through this analogy in terms of spiritual formation. In March of 2008, I published an article on this idea in Discipleship Journal. As I looked at all that I had left on the editing floor, it was apparent that I wanted to write more.

At first, I started writing for the sake of personal processing. But, as I shared these ideas in small groups and sermons, I was motivated to expand even more. And so, here is Fluid with God. I got the idea for the name from a book by Steven Gutstein, an autism therapy innovator, who was describing communication systems in terms of static systems and fluid systems. A static system is a highly choreographed communication system that can be learned by rote, but does not involve any relational skills. A fluid system, however, is an organic system between people that is responsive and flexible with the free-flow of interaction.

As for the structure of the book, I am basically following the storyline of the Bible, much like one might storyboard for a child with autism. I do reference a lot of stories from all kinds of genres—films, books, myths, biographies. All these stories weave in and out of the grand story of the Bible, so I use them often and freely. There are sections that allow the reader to stop, step back from the story and the ideas, and consider some practical advice for moving forward with a connection with God. I did not hold back on dishing out some meatier ideas with biblical theology because I believe that our souls are yearning for something deep, challenging, and stimulating. Some of the ideas may be new to the reader, so I have tried to put additional help in the endnotes.

Section one develops the idea of both our desire for an actual relationship with God interspersed with stories about Micah, my own experiences of doubt and confusion, and conversations about the frustration with spiritual clichés.

Section two takes us into the story of the Scriptures with a focus on the beginning of Genesis—both the ordered beauty of creation and the tragic fall of human rebellion. My hope is to get us to see how we have arrived at this present struggle with futility.

Section 3 takes us into the exodus from Egypt because this is such an important theme throughout the rest of the Bible. In it, we find hope as well as some root ideas on a relationship with God.

There is an interlude to span the gap between some major portions of the history of Israel and the book of Psalms.

Section four is the Psalms as more than simply a collection of poems, but in fact, songs that express something about the history of Israel in a way that gets to both the mind and the heart.

Section five brings us to the gospels, the ministry of Jesus, and the cross. Jesus Himself is addressing our spiritual autism: our routines, our black-and-white view of the world, and the attempt by God Himself to get down on the floor with us to make eye contact. Here we see the redemption of God.

Section six expands on the redemption theme and into the restoration theme. We look at the resurrection and why this is the very thing that people with a spiritual autism need to take seriously. We move to the ideas of finding connection from this arrival of the Spirit, the community that God creates, and the final destination for the follower of Jesus.

In sum, God has storyboarded for us an epic tale because of our spiritual autism. He knows we cannot see Him or understand Him apart from Him coming to us, explaining things, drawing us into this story so we can see Him and see ourselves and begin to look up.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are so many to thank, it is almost an impossible task. I start with my wife Desiree who has put in so much time, effort, pray, and love for Micah. She is relentless in helping him connect to us and to others! She is a wonderful wife and mother; a true gift from God. Micah has been such a source of reflection especially in showing me what innocence might have looked like before the Fall. I am grateful to God for him. To Josiah and Jordan, I am grateful for them being caring siblings to a brother who, on the surface, reciprocates so minimally. Abby Auclair, Denise Williams and Leah Bonny formed the nucleus for Micah’s first therapy team and gave untold hours and efforts to help him learn to speak. Aimee Hill was my first reader and offered both valuable input and invaluable encouragement. Linda Brown, who read through the entire manuscript, helped with my many awkward sentences, gave gracious encouragement and helpful insight. Thanks to Gwen Brown for helping me make everything look sharp. My close friend, Jay LeBlanc was one of the people I initially began thinking out loud with on this project. As a true friend always is, he was a source of encouragement, yet always prompting me to hone my thoughts with great questions. Dr. Richard Averbeck, who was my advisor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and continues to be a friend and mentor, made several spaces in his busy schedule to be a theological sounding board for me. Keith Meyer kept encouraging me to write and also offered direction and friendship. Dr. Craig Williford, whose wisdom, counsel and friendship have always been a rock for me personally and professionally, was also a refuge in times of dismay in the middle of writing. Dr. Steve Grcevich gave me opportunities to play out some of these ideas on his blog post, as well as being a forceful advocate through Key Ministries for special needs families. The congregation of Redeemer Church in Milwaukee has been such an unwavering source of support and encouragement. Finally, and hopefully not in a trite or predictable way—to my great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who has revolutionized my life with forgiveness, new purpose and indescribable joy!

SECTION 1

The Stop and Start Connection with God

CHAPTER 1

Did I Just Connect with God? Or Is That Just Me Talking to Myself and Telling Myself It Was God?

I t was a very strange moment when I thought I heard God clearly speaking to me. I did not hear an audible voice. It was more like a voice coming from within … I think. And I still remember what the voice said. It said, I am smoothing the way before you. I heard this voice as I was leaving Northeast Ohio and heading back to Southwest Ohio after my second interview with a church for the senior pastor position. I had talked with some other churches and they were very interested, but I could tell something was not quite right chemistry-wise. This church, however, just seemed like a perfect fit. I felt a connection with the people. I felt a certain magic when I walked around the atrium of the building or looked at the surrounding neighborhoods and the village square. I was raised in Akron, Ohio, so this part of the country always felt like home. I began imagining what ministry might look like and feel like at this church. So, out loud during my four hour drive back to Southwest, Ohio, I asked God—Unworthy as I am to ask You for anything, would you send me to this church? And to that question, the answer from within came, I am smoothing the path before you. Wow. Was that God? Or was that me talking to myself? Was it something that arose subconsciously (the highway I was driving back on was under a lot of repair—maybe it was me thinking of the potholes in the road and the need for the road to be smoothed out)? Or was I alerted to the presence of God? It seemed so clear and so definitive. The thought, the voice—whatever it was—came up before I had a chance to form any answer and think it up as though it was coming from God’s mouth. Yes, I was sure that I had heard from God. I had an encounter with the Almighty. I arrived home confident that God had spoken to me and that He was putting all the pieces together and connecting all of the dots. Two weeks later, the church called me to tell me that they were going with another candidate. Okay… maybe it was just me engaged in wishful thinking.

What happened here? I was praying. I was striving to be with God and to serve God. From where did that thought come? Why did this feel like some kind of cosmic tease? Why do so many things feel like a tease from the infinite beyond? Why does God make it so hard to connect with Him?

Now back in Southwest Ohio, wondering what was next, what God wanted, and if He wanted anything, I was left very perplexed by this whole episode. Was I just praying a Señor Wences prayer (drawing a face on the flat part of my fist and then having my hand talk back to me as if it were God)?

Sometimes, this whole faith thing—this God-thing—is downright confusing. For every little moment where it feels like God is clearly aware of us, watching out for us, and encouraging us—be it with some perfectly timed check that we were not expecting when we needed money, a word from a friend that seems like it was sent specifically our way, or just a sense of peace and calm when we should be frantic—there seems to be loads of space in-between when we are wondering where God is and why He missed something of great importance—or why it seems like this relationship is all one-sided. Shortly after hearing the news that I would not be going to northeastern Ohio to pastor a church, a friend asked me, How does one hear from God? How do you know?

How should I know?, I snorted. I thought God was speaking directly to me, and whatever I heard was completely off!

But, for all of our frustration, maybe the problem is not with God but with us. Maybe God is entirely present and we are the ones with a glitch in the system.

The Glitch In Our System

I happen to be very red-green color-blind—so much so that it affects most of the colors in the spectrum unless they are bold primary colors. This always makes shopping for clothes an adventure, and I am usually smart enough to take along someone I can trust. But, one day I abandoned common sense, went to the department store by myself, and bought a pair of sweatpants thinking they were gray. I even asked the saleswoman what color the sweat-pants were. I always ask women about colors since they almost never retain the color-blind gene. Only 0.0000001 percent of women are color-blind (or some extremely minimal number). Well, they were not gray. They were hot pink—which means I either found the needle in the haystack (the 0.0000001 percent of all women), or… she was the Devil. When I showed up at the boxing gym the next day, my arrival was met with hoots and hollers about who was going to spar with Pinky (boxing gyms, where the machismo flows like wine, is not the place to don a pair of hot-pink workout pants if you are planning on sparring). This was before pink was the new gray (whatever that means). My friend Manny wanted to know what I could possibly have been thinking when I donned the fuchsia sweats. I told him about my color blindness and that I thought (up until about three minutes ago) that the sweatpants were gray. "So, you really are color-blind?, he asked almost incredulously. Yes! Why would I do this on purpose?, I replied. Manny pondered the situation—looked at me, looked at the sweats … looked at me again—and then whispered his next question into my ear: You know I’m black, right?

There was nothing wrong with the color of the sweatpants. The problem was my inability to decipher one color from another. I have a glitch in the system—something that skews my perception of things. It is something that takes the input of colors through my eyes and then scrambles it so that I am not accurately interpreting what I am seeing. There is a glitch that is also present in all of us when it comes to encountering God, understanding His presence, hearing His voice, and getting a grasp of where we are in His story.

In fact, I believe that part of the glitch is not understanding that we are living within a story that God is currently telling. I believe this glitch is something that has affected all of us as human beings. I believe that God is actually entirely present, but we have a certain inability to connect the dots, to hear God’s voice above all the static, and to see how all of the puzzle pieces fit together. Sometimes God speaks very clearly, but we lack the patience and the perspective to hear Him. Sometimes, God is not speaking at all, but we want Him to speak so badly (and we know what we want Him to say) that this glitch allows us to hear what we want to hear and attribute it to God. That was the problem I had coming back to Southwest Ohio. God had told me that He was smoothing the way before me, but maybe that is just what I wanted to hear and not really God at all. Or maybe He was taking me to Northeast Ohio, but His timing and sequence were very different. He didn’t tell me how this was going to take place, and I didn’t bother to ask Him how the pieces all fit together after Faith Community Church initially told me that they would not be selecting me as their senior pastor. But hadn’t I experienced God speaking to me after I left the church in Northeast Ohio? Did God override the glitch?

Maybe He Was Speaking to Me

Okay, here is how this whole trip to Northeast Ohio happened in the first place. The church I had been serving at in Southwest Ohio went through a really difficult split with many staff members being fired or leaving. I eventually quit, feeling that the best thing I could do was move on. Within twenty-four hours, the senior pastor resigned to plant a church down the road. I was asked to come back on staff to try and right the ship, but (at least from my perspective) the situation was not improving. I felt that God was calling me out of Southwest Ohio, and then Faith Community Church called me out-of-the-blue. Things seemed to be going perfectly, and then after hearing God (I thought) tell me that He was smoothing the way before me, I got a call saying, The search team is going in a different direction. Things were getting worse at the church in Southwest Ohio. I tried to address the problems, but I got labeled as a troublemaker. I became more and more embittered by the day. A church assessment team came in and affirmed my concerns, but then the assessment leader asked me some pointed questions about why I was still at this church. He kindly—but firmly—suggested it was time for me to resign and wait on God. This was devastating! Did this guy know how much I had already gone through? And I had been right! Why should I have to resign and put my young family at financial risk?

But, he was right. And it felt like I was hearing from God again, confirming what this man was saying, telling me that I needed to heal up for my next assignment. I talked this over with my wife, looked at my hand to make sure this was not a Señor Wences moment, and then I resigned. Our severance package would take us through December, and then … well, let’s just say the safety net was removed. I hoped that I had, in fact, heard from God. But, I had to question my discernment. I thought He was smoothing the path to the church in Northeast Ohio. And I didn’t hear that one right, did I?

Then, the university where I was doing my graduate studies called a few weeks later. I had been in a master’s program in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department and they needed a teaching assistant. It would pay $4500 for the quarter and pick up the tuition on ten credit hours of classes that I still needed. Okay, now we could make it into February before we ran out of money.

Then Faith Community Church called a few weeks after the university and asked if I could guest-preach again. The search had not produced a final candidate and they had to start up the search process again. I would not be considered for this position because I had already been passed on in the first cycle, but if I could fill-in, that would help them and it would help me. I was amazed at how God was providing! Now, we had enough money to make it to April … and two churches were very interested in me—one in eastern Pennsylvania and one in upstate New York. But, then Faith Community Church had to cut my sermon series short because they wanted to put me back into the pool of candidates. In the end, I was hired by Faith Community Church on April 1st (and became the church’s annual April Fool’s joke). God had smoothed the way before me. He snapped a group of puzzle pieces in place to help me begin to see a bigger picture, and even more important to me—He had indeed spoken. I wasn’t making this feeling of God’s presence up! But, why does it seem so difficult. Why so many doubts? Why so much confusion and difficulty in truly hearing and knowing God’s voice? Why you ask? It’s the static.

CHAPTER 2

Static Shock

I hate static. And I mean all forms of it. Well, there is one exception. Sometimes, my kids and I get under my dark blue fleece blanket in the winter and run our fingers along the inside to see the little blue sparks we make with our hands. My middle child, Micah, could do that for hours! Apart from that, however, I hate static. I hate it when my clothes are clinging to me because of static electricity. I hate when I walk across a carpeted room to kiss my wife and we both get zapped on the lips. I hate when I am trying to pick up a radio station and all I get is that friction we call static. I hate feeling like everything is just motionless. Webster’s dictionary defines static as …

Not moving, not active … a noise produced in a radio or television receiver by atmospheric or other electrical disturbances.

A static life is a life in which everything just stays stiff, flat, and compartmentalized. There is a lack of fluidity in life—both with the various pieces of the stories we live in and with the God that we try to commune with through our routines and rituals. We live lives that are so segmented that it is a wonder we see anything beyond the moment that we are in currently. We wear the work hat, the family hat, the friends hat, the politics hat, the religion hat, the exercise hat, and so on. And never the compartments shall meet! Sometimes they don’t meet because we have certain rules like—Never talk about politics with friends. So apparently, we have to keep the friendship compartment away from the politics compartment. Not that this is necessarily a bad rule (depends on your friends, I suppose). Some compartmentalizing rules are really good ones, like leave your work at work. But, when we apply it across the board everything stays apart, as planned, but everything also stays static. Nothing puts the puzzle pieces together. We never see the story we live in because we keep all the chapters apart from one another. We seem to prefer static over fluid because at least static is predictable. Fluid though … you never know where fluid might take you.

Even if we did want to see how everything fits together and embrace some of the fluidity that might take us somewhere completely unexpected, many times, life is moving so fast that we can barely keep up with it all. If we try to see things all coming together, it feels like chaos because it is so hard to organize all of the information coming at us. I read a fascinating mystery novel some years ago titled, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. The detective in the story is a young boy who is also an autistic savant. Not only does he narrate the story, but also gives the reader insights into how some people with autism perceive the world around them. They often experience a sensory overload which is described in the novel as listening to a radio where the tuner is between two stations and both signals are coming in at once.¹ What a clear description of our lives sometimes. This is a static of a different kind- our inability to get a clear signal of the story we are in or to hear the voice of God and know that it is Him; like the annoying buzz when you cannot get good reception for an AM radio station. But, if you have ever tried to listen to an AM station in your car and the static is making it next to impossible to hear what is being broadcast … but then all of a sudden, you hit a patch of space where the signal comes in strong and clear—that is akin to what I have been striving for with my relationship with God (if I may use such an overused and badly misunderstood phrase). It is finding those patches in space and time where God is a little more clear, where faith is a lot less blind and life is a lot more fluid.

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to live a more fluid life—a life where everything is woven together, not in some tangled mess, but in a very meaningful way. I have wondered about living fluidly with God, seeing the drama that is played out in everyday life and how we fit into this story, instead of jamming all of life into its different containers. It feels a bit like the Holy Grail of science—the theory of everything (as some call it). Even the most brilliant brains in our world are too feeble to put that together. So, no—I am not that ambitious. What I have been thinking about is simpler. So let me introduce you to how I am trying to think and live in a way that is more fluid with God. It all starts with gaining insight from all of the smaller moments and fitting those moments into a larger story that organizes them, makes sense of them. It is a lot like putting some individual puzzle pieces together after having found and connected all of the border pieces. For instance …

CHAPTER 3

These Small Hours, These Little Wonders

M ost mornings for our family are a clockwork-like routine. On school days, I get up around 6:00AM, get some sweat pants on, descend the staircase, make a pot of coffee, and turn on the TV for the morning news shows. Then, it is time to head back upstairs and get the first two kiddos up. To achieve this, I typically reach up and grab our oldest—Josiah—by the heels and begin to drag him halfway out of his loft bed so that the sensation of hanging out of bed will wake him the rest of the way. Cruel, maybe. Effective, absolutely … and he has not fallen yet. Our daughter, Jordan, requires a simple wake-up call. After trudging down the stairs and over to the kitchen table, they slowly begin to nibble away at breakfast. Despite the grogginess and the tinge of crankiness of my two early morning diners, there is something peaceful about this morning routine. It has a certain serenity and quiet safety to it. Everything is ordered. Everything is structured. Josiah and Jordan are still too sleepy to begin pecking at each other. It is a small moment shared with others who belong to you and you belong to them. I cannot say why I experience this sensation as I watch two of my kids slumped in chairs, eating their breakfast, and grumbling about how tired they are and how tough they have got it, but I do. In all of its simplicity, it is a little wonder with two of my three children.

About the time they are finishing breakfast (and perking up), 7:00AM rolls around and it is time to wake up child #3 (whose bus comes twenty-five minutes later). And there is rote and routine here as well. Like his brother Josiah, waking Micah usually requires me dragging him feet first out of his bed. After a long, deep stretch, Micah begins pulling his socks and pants on, although still bleary-eyed and zombie-like. He slips his shirt over his head, gives me