“My handicapped child… is a seer”, an email I received began. “He has severe spastic CP with no purposeful movement from the nose down. He is 18 and has normal intelligence but can only blink for yes. We were originally told that he was profoundly retarded but it didn’t take long to see that he wasn’t…”
The mother said when he was three at bedtime, “we sometimes noticed that he smiled at things behind us. He even laughed pretty loudly when no one was in the room with him. When I asked him if he was talking to someone he blinked yes and gave us a look like, “Can’t you see them too?””
Much later, another seer confirmed that their son could see quite clearly in the spirit realm. The seer added “the four biggest angels he had ever seen were at the four corners of our property. He also saw that angels were walking through our house all the time.”
They were interacting with their son, who from time to time sees and talks with Jesus in his dreams.
I have spoken to a shocking number of parents of handicapped or disabled children who see spirits.
Many Handicapped Children are Seers
I’m overlapping the terms “handicapped” with “disabled.” In these categories, I generally include children who are mentally retarded, hard of hearing, deaf, speech impaired, visually handicapped, orthopedically impaired, other health impaired, deaf-blind, etc. Disabled, or “differently abled” children have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments. This isn’t a comprehensive description, but hopefully you understand what I’m talking about.
God has granted many handicapped children spiritual gifts and abilities.
As their gifts and abilities are ignored or not developed, they may fade, as with “regular” children.
Autism and Seers
One of my European friends with autism shared on our old forum, “to me it looks like many people with autism have seer capabilities but lose them while they grow up. Because almost all of us, autistic persons, try to recognize patterns to stay alive in the social jungle of unwritten behavior and regulations. And copy them as much as possible, although we shall never understand them. Being a seer simply does not fit, so we neglect it until it has been disappeared.”
A great many children on the autism spectrum seem to perceive quite clearly entities or things in the spiritual realm. Perhaps the same wiring in their brains that put them on the autistic spectrum makes them more perceptive to spiritual things.
A Difficult Question
Why would God give spiritual gifts and abilities to children (and adults) who have handicaps that prevent them from using their gifts for the Kingdom?
What good is the seer ability in a child whose intelligent mind is trapped in a body rendering him nearly incapable of communicating what he sees?
Moreover, many people write me pleading for help in “acquiring” the gift of seeing spiritual things so they can engage in spiritual warfare. (If they do something to acquire it, isn’t it no longer a gift, but payment for services rendered?)
Why would God give spiritual gifts to those who can’t even engage in spiritual warfare?
Such presumption!
God’s Rule and the Handicapped
Let’s define terms. The Kingdom is the dynamic rule of God. It’s God’s will being enacted on earth. It’s the activity of God’s government. God rules completely in heaven; God’s government is on earth, but not fully on earth yet.
And a spiritual gift, as this post explains, is really a grace endowment, not a payment for services rendered, and God gets to choose which abilities he endows in whomever whenever he chooses.
Is God ruling in the bodies of handicapped children?
No. But for that matter, God isn’t fully ruling in my body either – with its scoliosis and degenerating discs and my near-sighted eyes and missing kidney.
But this is the body I have, and I can use it to the best of my abilities according to God’s rule.
The same goes for children (and adults) with handicaps and disabilities, albeit their lives are much more difficult than mine.
When the Lord Jesus returns bodily bringing the Kingdom in its fullness, then their imperfect mortal bodies (and mine!) will be made perfect.
The World’s View of Handicapped Children
The other night, I had dinner with my cousin who has Down’s Syndrome. He has such love for others and a hilarious sense of humor.
The world currently says it would have been acceptable for my aunt to have aborted him for his Downs (or for any reason up to and after birth, in some states).
Op-ed pieces in major US newspapers and influential bio-ethicists in the US and Europe openly recommend aborting or killing newborns with handicaps or disabilities.
The world reasons, since life will be harder for them and especially their parents, what’s the point? Abort and live a better life!
Well, if there’s one thing our society doesn’t value, it’s sacrifice to serve others. And this goes for children with any handicaps or disabilities.
In the world’s economy, they are last in value.
In God’s economy, however, they are first.
In Luke 14:16-24, Jesus gives a parable regarding those invited to participate in the Kingdom of God. The ruler invited the privileged to participate, but they rejected the invitation. So he invited “the poor and crippled and blind and lame.”
God invites children and adults with handicaps and disabilities to participate as they are in God’s government on earth.
The least in the world are the first in the Kingdom of God.
Many seers have either rejected their ability or refused to use them according to God’s active rule. They were too busy going about their own business.
So God has invited the handicapped and disabled to help run his government. And knowing God’s judgment, they’ll do so spectacularly.
Handicapped child and adult seers are God’s eyes and ears.
It’s contingent on those of us without handicaps or disabilities to cooperate with what God is doing. Teach them about the spirit realm and the Kingdom Conflict, and invite them to participate, to take their parts and to operate in their gifting.
Remember, the purpose of this gift is to bring more of the world under God’s rule, starting with your life and home, then the local church, and then the local community.
Yes it will be more difficult for handicapped children to communicate what they are perceiving in the spirit realm, because basically everything is more difficult in a world not designed for those with handicaps and disabilities.
As parents, pastors, friends and neighbors, we must equip people with special needs to use their unique gifts and abilities according to the role God has granted them, not according to the role society has bound to them. They are God’s gift to us, and God has granted them gifts for us, and we get to serve them as we’d serve God and as God serves us.
Help them take their place in God’s Story.
God has granted gifts to the handicapped and disabled. Can we, as the servant in verse 22, reply, “Sir, what you have commanded has been done…”?