I have three children, all grown. In retrospect, I don’t know that I’ve been a very good or effective father. Living on the spectrum for me has meant that I’ve not always been attuned to social cues, verbal or non-verbal. Similarly, I don’t know that I have ever demonstrated the capacity for a knowing and deep emotional connection. Not that I don’t feel such a connection, but that I am challenged to communicate it and demonstrate it. Although not consciously, I looked to the models of fatherhood that I had in my life. My own father dwelt on the same spectrum on which I reside. His inability to visibly connect created a seeming distance between us, though there were moments when he reached out to comfort me and briefly displayed a depth of love that was otherwise invisible. Although it touched me in the moment, like water to a thirsty man the brief sip only heightened the unanswered craving.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I often see my dad looking back. My connection to my children was often only in brief moments that exacerbated the daily distance. When I look at our Father God, too, I see a similar distance. A distance born of sin and waywardness, but having been born in sin, we never had the experience of communing with Him in the garden before the fall. Under the old covenant, God was distant, demanding, and seemingly more given to punishment than blessing. Many in the Old Testament seemed to strive not for God’s love, but to avoid His judgment.
When Jesus came, though, He brought a witness of God’s love. A demonstration of humanity and a willingness to connect emotionally. Through his sacrifice Jesus became not only our pathway, but our intercessor. Going home to the Father God’s house can only be done through Jesus. He said “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me1”. In truth, I wouldn’t want to approach the Father without Him. Even so, I want to model the fatherhood demonstrated by Jesus. Jesus wept, and bled, and grieved, and loved. In the Old Testament, Father God’s love was understood in a rational sense. He must love us, because He hasn’t smote us. In the New Testament, He showed His love in the sacrifice of his Son, and His Son demonstrated His love directly in His interaction with other people.
I see in some ways that the Father God of the Old Testament often showed the traits of a spectrum father – distant, disengaged, better at demonstrating anger than love. Mercifully we have a fuller revelation of Father God in the New Testament – a Father I want to know better and to Whom I want to be closer.
1 John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
In a dry and thirsty land 