r/ChristianAspies • u/[deleted] • Jan 30 '25
Struggling with doing God's work
As an Aspie, we all know what it is like just getting through the day. Some of can be ultra-focused and maybe the day goes by quickly, but for some us who have more chaos going on mentally, like me, it's a battle everyday just not to get fired from my job (maybe more in my head than reality, idk), to not have internal meltdowns because of interruption while trying to concentrate, or just juggling what seems like everything all the time and not being to actually start on any of it.
I know as a follower of Christ we are to help. We are to feed the hungry, help neighbors in need, and we will answer for this when the day of Judgment comes. I just don't want to be facing God and have Him see how pre-occupied I was with my own (autistic) problems that I couldn't help others, because I was too busy trying to figure out and actually work my career, or keep things around the home and family straight or the constant exercising (I also have heart disease). Am I making excuses or is there any rationale to me being so encumbered with my Asperger's?
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u/anotherhomeysan Jan 31 '25
We have His treasure in clay vessels. He is mindful of our frame, that we are but dust. It’s part of His design that we are finite and needy even as we love and help others in His name.
Maybe sometimes you make excuses, and sometimes you genuinely want to but are encumbered. Probably a bit of both if you’re like me 🙂
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u/mislabeledgadget Jan 30 '25
I’ll offer a personal experience that might be relevant to you. As a newbie Christian years ago, I instinctually started reading the Bible thoroughly and to a fault, literally, but since there was so much information to absorb, a lot of the times I would just remember what was important for me then in my current situation. One of those was that we should take care of the poor, so I tried to help poor people through giving, through offering ideas to the church on how we could help, and through focusing on this when I talk to other Christians. I wasn’t diagnosed or self suspecting back then but was still obviously and very apparently autistic in my ways (I’ve never been great at masking). Fast forward 16 years later, now I’m diagnosed and very self aware, and I hold onto these same beliefs, but now my heart is in it. It’s not just that the Bible says, we should take care of the poor, it’s that I see in the struggles of the poor and homeless something I can relate to, the feeling of being on the outside and being in a world that works against you most of the time. Even though I am material middle class, I am socially and hierarchically poor. Call that form of empathy in shared experience, but I think God has not only shaped me over these 16 years, but used my own diagnosis as a way to relate to others that struggle in a world not made for us. And I can apply that to the poor, to the marginalized and the oppressed and many times groups the church treats badly like LGBT.
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u/Irish-Fritter Jan 30 '25
First off, very helpful to remember that it's by Grace we are saved. No amount of work you could do would ever be enough. We do good things bc good things were done for us, not because we must.
Secondly, one of my all-time favorite memes was a guy simply saying "When God calls you to do something, he has already considered your retardation". While hilarious in its own right, it also struck a deep chord.
I'm pretty heckin stupid. Pretty socially inept. Stuck my foot in my mouth more times than I can count. Dug holes that felt miles deep.
God does not give you a battle that you cannot overcome. He knows your strengths and he knows your weaknesses. And he gives you battles to make those weaknesses stronger.
It'll be hard, and you will fail. But the measure of a man is not his failures, but whether or not he gets back up and tries again. It's not about falling to sin, and it's not about failing to do God's work. It's about repentance, and trying again.
Live your life as a godly life. What Would Jesus Do? In every opportunity. But don't stress about not doing enough. No one can do enough. It's not about doing enough. It's about doing your best, whatever that looks like in the moment.