Grief Expressed as Anger

In June of last year, I left my quest to be a missionary, and got a contract as a tech writer.  I was told it would be 6 to 18 months, and that they really, really wanted to hire me.  Then a little church asked me to be their pastor.  About 30 people.  They couldn’t really afford to pay me anything much, but I didn’t care.

So, I would work 40 hours and spend time outside of work prepping to lead singing and preach.  It was draining, but such a great joy to teach and care for these folks.

Then in December, with no warning, the contract ended.  I’ve been jobless for eight months.  Since June, when I started keeping track again, I’ve applied for 75 jobs.

Today, I spent some time taking care of things at church, and came home furious.  It took me hours to figure out that I was feeling grief.  Baring a miracle, I will have to leave the church when I finally find a job.  I’ve been there over a year, and have grown to care for these folks.

No tears though, just fury.  It helps if when I figure out what it is, because then I don’t feel quite so angry.  My wife is cool with it if I explain it to here.  My wife is the coolest neuro-typical I’ve ever met.

The last time I cried, other than during times of worship, was two years ago when my mother died.  Intense times of worshiping God lead me to tears when I have a sense of His mercy and holiness.  But those tears are not about grief necessarily.

Adam

I’m Back!!!

(@Aspie @Aspies)

Well, I think I’ve been away for about a month.  I just reached the overload limit in life and started switching to survival mode.  Job hunting and pastoring at a church at the same time got to be a bit much.

One reason is that I never do anything part way.  I want to do the best with what I have.  That takes a great deal of energy and creativity.  Well, as you can imagine, a church, being a group of people, is an ever changing, cascade of personal textures.  Planning becomes an exercise in understanding what volunteers are capable of and how far I think that I can help them grow.

The first mistake (one of numerous I’m sure) was to take the stated intentions of a new person at face value.  I should have considered age, background, maturity, stability.  So, I invested far more in this volunteer than I should have.  Now this person has pulled back, and I’m having to rethink a number of things. 

I think we Aspies can train ourselves to look inside of people and discern more about them than we do naturally.  I also think that sticking to some guidelines will guard against future error.

Not every Aspie reading this has a group of volunteers whose development and growth he/she is responsible for.  However, you  might be a parent, teacher, manager, friend, etc.  All of us have expectations of what the people around us will be, do and become.

For Aspies, especially, those expectations can be based on an idealized view of the world.  Because of the sensory integration deficit in most Aspies, the world around us is a mass of incoming chaos.  We manage the chaos through rigidly defining the world around us.  Thus it becomes manageable.  When we look at expectations for people we tend to set our expectations in the best terms possible for our own benefit.

The world doesn’t simply revolve around my wants and needs.  No one can see inside my head and read my list of expectations.  If they could they would probably laugh out loud.  So what do I do?

First, I slow down.  Before throwing some one into a role they may or may not be suited for, take the time to get to know that person.

Second, set clear requirements for the role.  Be specific on the few important things you expect.  If your list of expectations is over five items, you can count on the person failing.

Third, decide in advance your tolerance for variation or at least decide to expect nothing to be just the way you like it.

Fourth, ask for status updates.  How are you doing?  Where can you improve?  Here is what I expect of you.

Fifth, be an encourager.  Highlight what the person is doing well and what you like about it.  Don’t discuss failures, but instead discuss growth opportunities.

I’ll try to remember to let you know how this works out in my case.  It’s difficult to talk things through in a positive way.  I would much rather people just be able to do the stuff I ask them to.  In my case, though, I’m a shepherd; a pastor.  My job is to gently lead.  I think that form of leadership will be successful for everyone.

Adam

An Invisible God?

For some Aspies an apparently intangible God is difficult to comprehend.  I can’t see God with my eyes, and very few individuals have ever heard Him speak directly.  Some people have experienced miracles, but many faithful believers, even Bible scholars, never experience any miracle beyond that of being forgiven of sin.

So, is God hiding from us?  How can He be real if I can’t see Him?

Rationally, we can’t question God’s existence simply because we can’t see or touch Him.  We believe in the existence of many influential historical person that we have never seen.  No one questions the existence of Plato or Aristotle whose philosophies have done much to shape the societies of the Western world.  The only evidence that these two men existed are from manuscript copies of their writings.  Scholars judge their manuscripts as authentic.  The more manuscripts and the closer to their time the author lived the better.

Plato?  The closest manuscripts is within a 1200 years of his life.  There are seven of them left.

Aristotle?  1400 years.  There are 49 manuscripts left.

How about the New Testament part of the Christian Bible?  There are copies New Testament books that date within 100 years of the time of Christ.  There are fragmentary portions that go back even farther.  There are 5,600 New Testament manuscripts available.

That is just part a sliver of the evidence that indicates that the Bible is an accurately preserved historical document.  There is much more than I can go into here.  Suffice it to say, there is strong evidence pointing to the existence of the invisible God of the Bible.

(For more on this documentary evidence click this link)

It may seem impossible, but is the problem in the existence of god or in my perspective?

More soon.

Adam

Can't Take Faith at Face Value

Received feed back my Six Givens post.  They are probing questions that deserve a thoughtful response.  So, I decided to respond to some of them here in a new posting.  
To pursue a more extended discussion on the veracity of the Bible or the existence of God, please visit Share The Crown.  I would love to get feedback there and engage a vigorous and thoughtful discussion.


Here my responses to some of the questions about my six givens.


My statement:  There is a literal God who has a personality and created all that exists.
The question:  god has personality: is this consistent with being all-knowing and perfectly just?
My Answer:  I see no inconsistency there.  I state that God has a personality to differentiate myself from those faith systems that view god as an impersonal force. To say God has a personality does not imply that He is a human.  It would be inconsistent if he didn't have a personality.  The Bible states that God created humans in His image, and as such we are the only animals on this planet that posses person hood or self awareness.  God has a will, desires, emotions, values, loves, hates, etc.  Being created in His image we have the same.  


My statement:  The Christian Bible is a message from this unique literal God, and the only source of information about Him.
The Question:  why does god undergo a complete personality change between the old and new testament?
My Answer: He doesn't.  A careful examination of the Old Testament reveals that it clearly points to Christ as the solution to the problem of sin.  Christ is clearly symbolized in the sacrificial system and foretold by prophets.  The apparent change is God in His patiences extending a time of grace.  Why don't find this confusing in people, why do we demand that God be some sort of robot exhibiting only certain qualities and never the fullness we see in humans?


Think of the most admirable person you know.  Imagine that this person is grievously wronged by you.  He has every right to reject you as a friend, but instead he gives you a second chance.  What happens if you continue to commit wrongs against this person?  He will eventually reject you as a friend.  You will loose you opportunity for reconciliation.  Because of Christ, we have an opportunity to be reconciled to God.    


My statement: God created everything that exists
The Question:  Who created god?
My Answer:  Insisting that God must have a creator is no more rational than declaring He does not.  Granted, everything that we can observe has a cause.  Some argue, so God must have a cause.  The flaw in the argument is that to demand that God have a creator would mean He is not God.  I'm going back to the supposition that the Bible is the only source for knowing who God is.  In the Bible God He has always existed.  There is no hint in any way that God was a creator.  


We often make the mistake of conforming our understanding of God to our human limitations.  I asert that God created everything including time.  Such being the case, God would exist outside of and prior to what He created.  He would have no beginning.  No creator.  Anything created has a beginning.  God does not.    


My Statement:  The first created humans (Adam & Eve) disobeyed God’s moral law and in doing so became enemies of God.The Question:  god created adam and eve: does this mean you are a creationist? has god deliberately deceived us by planting [masses of] false evidence against creationism?
My Answer:  I disagree that there are masses of evidence against creationism.  It is really a question of presupposition.  If you determined that they can't possibly be a God, then when faced with the Cambrian Explosion, then you must develop a hypothesis of Punctuated Equilibrium instead of question the veracity of Darwin's theory.  Frankly the existence of DNA and evidence that mutation is always subtractive makes macro evolution untenable at best.    

These are just a few of the questions posed to me, and I'm sure that they will stir up further questions and comments.  Join me over at Share The Crown
if you would like to post comments or further questions.


Adam

Six Givens (I wish is was an even 10)

As a Christian adult in with Asperger Syndrome, I believe that I struggle against the “natural” man in a unique way.  I’ll try and explain what I mean over the next several posts.  My intent is to propose that Biblical Christianity is the best tool, if you will, for helping people with Asperger integrate successfully and happily into neurotypical society. 

I don’t want to cure Asperger Syndrome.  In fact, I think when I get to heaven and I receive a “glorified” body absent of sin, I will still be an Aspie (or Aspergerian if you prefer) to the extent that it is essential to who I am as a person and not essentially a feature of sin.  It’s tempting for some to conclude in heaven that we will all be wiped of everything that made us who we are and we will be perfect.  We will be perfect, but to think that every feature of me will be gone when I enter eternity doesn’t fit with a rational examination of the Bible.   It fits more with Buddhism.  We won’t be eliminated, rather, sin will be eliminated and we will be at peace with God.

So what is the problem now.  What is the natural man.  Well, first some suppositions.  There are some statements that I treat as real and true and won’t try to prove as part of this series of postings.  You just have to go with them as a given for sake of argument or the article won’t make any rational sense.

Here are my givens:

1. There is a literal God who has a personality and created all that exists.  This God is unique in that there is no other God in existence.  All other “gods” a human inventions or other spiritual beings (demons) pretending to be an actual god.
2. The Christian Bible is a message from this unique literal God, and the only source of information about Him.  By the way, God is neither male nor female, so the “him” pronoun doesn’t imply gender.
3. God created everything that exists: time, space, matter, energy and the laws that govern the universe.  Those laws or both physical (gravity, motion, etc) and moral (right and wrong).  God is morally perfect (also called holy) and demands the same of His creation.
4.  The first created humans (Adam & Eve) disobeyed God’s moral law and in doing so became enemies of God.  In kind we have all inherited, by birth, the sin condition.  We have enemy status as moral criminals and deserve God’s just punishment: hell.  God came to earth as a man (Jesus Christ) to declare the way for us to have peace with God and to take the punishment in our place by being crucified on a cross.
5. When Jesus died on the cross, he broke the power of sin.  When he rose from the dead, he broke the power of death.
6. When I renounce my status as a moral criminal and ask for God to make me his child based on Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, I am morally cleansed of sin and begin a process of being transformed from a natural (sinful) man into a man (or woman as the case may be) like Christ.  There is nothing I can do to achieve this.  It is a gift from God.  This transformational process takes place over my lifetime and culminates when my physical body dies and I enter into eternal life.

O.K. that was a lot, and maybe you're wondering what this is dong in a blog on Asperger Syndrome.  I was asked to help explain God to an Aspie.  This is the explanation for the adult Aspies.

As this develops I hope I can parse out the logical supposition for God, sin, the need for salvation, and the joyful transformation of those who surrender to and follow Jesus Christ.

Adam