The Autistic God

Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit. --Job 10:9-12

I enjoy spending some time with acquaintances who are autistic; typically those with autism are very unique and, in my opinion, way beyond the norm for compulsive thinkers. They lock into something and their minds do not have the ability to shift to anything else. One friend had locked into turtles; everything was about turtles: must find a turtle, must hold the turtle, and must examine the turtle. After catching a turtle, he scanned every section of the turtle, his eyes moving like a computer scanner. In the end, he put it down and drew a perfect picture of a turtle. He knew every line and dimple. Now, man is made in the image of God. Look at any man and you learn a secret or two about God. After watching the man with a turtle, I had an insight into God. God is Autistic! I could just imagine God making the turtle, thinking of every detail, locking into it, thinking of everything, how it would breathe, how it would move, what it would eat, and creating all that it needed. I could just see God locked in. It was then that I understood a bit more about the exactness of creation, that every hair of my head was numbered, and that so much detail had gone into my life. Everything has been perfect. All of creation is perfect. He has given me exactly--yes, exactly--what I have needed: in sickness, in health, in poverty, in struggle, and in stress, everything perfectly!

This brings me to another point. We see the perfection and how it must work. We cannot change it. I am often asked, “How can you believe in a God who allows suffering?” My response is, “How can you believe in man who causes the suffering?” AIDS is not the judgment of God; it is the judgment of man. By playing God and refusing to recognize Him and His perfection, man has done it all, killing many people. God has made us perfectly, and sin is a foreign resident in the body. All of the glue (Jesus) holding man together will attempt to repel it. It is in this condition that man complains about God, and yet everything that has been permitted into our lives has been the perfect thing, exactly what we need. 

- Mike Wells