Spiritual Autism Part 2

In part 1 I told you about Tyler and his condition of autism. We made the comparison between physical autism and spiritual autism, and how when we have allowed sin in our lives we become spiritually autistic. But what are the characteristics of autism? How does autism affect an individual? Autism affects every child differently, each autistic child has their own unique problems, but there are certain areas where they share common difficulties.

First of all, autism hinders a person’s Dialog. Tyler is four and a half years old, his speech is limited and until about six months ago he basically did not talk at all. We thank the Lord for the progress that we are seeing with him, his speech seems to be improving weekly, but he still has a long way to go. It is heart breaking to have a child that, because of their condition, you cannot communicate with.
It is also heart breaking to our heavenly Father when, because of sin in our lives, our line of communication is broken. Psalms 66:18 says that if we regard iniquity in our hearts, the Lord will not hear us. How many times have we let sin come into our lives and break that fellowship with God? When we do we are showing signs of spiritual autism.

Not only does autism hinder our Dialog, but it hinders our Diet. For half of Tyler’s life he has been on a wheat free diet. He can have nothing with gluten or casein. His body cannot process those foods. What did the apostle Paul say to the saints in Corinth? Because of their carnality he had to give them the milk of the word and not the meat (I Corinthians 3:1-3). As long as we harbor sin in our lives, we will not get the proper nourishment that we need from the word of God. We simply will not be able to handle the “meat of the word”.

Lastly, when we become spiritually autistic, when we give in to the flesh and let sin in our lives, it hinders our Development. Because of Tyler’s condition of autism, he cannot develop properly. Jennifer and I cannot train him like we can train Wesley and Riley because of our inability to communicate with him. We are commanded in the scriptures to grow in grace (2 Peter 3:18), to study to shew ourselves approved (2 Timothy 2:15), and to press toward the mark (Philippians 3:14). But we cannot follow these commands from scripture, we cannot develop in our spiritual lives while harboring sin in our lives.