Posted on 02/03/2015 5:29:16 PM PST by Maelstorm
I knew I was attracted to the same sex when I was seven — in some capacity, anyway. I don't think it's physiologically possible to truly feel sexual attraction at such a young age. But I knew there was a drawing in me toward the same gender – and drawing that was more than what some would say is "natural" or "normal."
As I grew up in a rural Louisiana town and teenage hormones began to surge throughout my body, my drawing toward the same gender intensified — sexually and emotionally. While I was definitely not engulfed in the life of a church during my adolescence, I was raised in close enough proximity to religious things – and religious people – that I knew the Bible referenced to homosexuality as an abominable thing.
The Bible referenced to me as an abominable thing. That was my understanding anyway. And not only did the Bible paint people like me in the light of all that is grotesque, but so did the people around me. Family, friends, football coaches. Everyone. To be gay was to be gross. To be gay was to be wicked. To be gay was to be scum.
So I prayed. Oh. How. I. Prayed.
"God, make me normal." "God, make me straight." "God, make me like everyone else."
But God didn't answer those prayers. Why?
I hear my experience repeated by others all the time. Just yesterday, actually. A Christian friend of mine was conversing with a guy who is living a homosexual lifestyle. He pleaded with her to believe that he had prayed for years for God to make him straight…. to no avail. She was speechless. She didn't know how to respond.
"Matt, why didn't God answer his prayer? I mean, he prayed God's will? Why was there no answer?"
I'm not God, so I can't know all the reasons why He wouldn't have answered this guy's prayers to be made attracted to women. But, I do know what He's revealed in the Bible and I do know what I now, as a believer in Jesus, believe to be true of my own "unanswered prayers" experience.
Firstly, when I grew up pleading with God to make me straight, I had no real interest in God Himself. I wasn't praying for God to do this because I loved Him or wanted to live my life for Him. I was actually pretty unconcerned about Him, to be honest. I wanted God to take away my same sex desires for my own benefit – so that I could fit in, be normal, be one of the guys, and even so that I could just have sex with girls like all of my friends were. < — So I obviously wasn't worried about being sexually moral. I just wanted to be sexually normal.
My desire to be made straight was all about me. I had no interest in being reconciled to God or having a relationship with Christ.
Which brings me to by second point. From what I see in the Bible, God is far more concerned with first fixing our hearts than he is with fixing other things in our lives. Same sex attraction included. Yes, it's true that God hates homosexuality. But more than that, He hates that our hearts are opposed to Him and that we long to live our lives separated from Him. God's foremost desire is that we would come to Him through Christ to receive new hearts that love and adore Him.
In fact, nothing can even begin to be done as far as the untangling of our sexualities until we receive new hearts that love and adore God. How do I know that? Because Romans 1 says that the whole reason homosexual desire even exists is due to our rejection of God's loving rule and authority over our lives.
Don't skip over this passage of Scripture I'm about to paste under here. It's vital that you read it.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."- Romans 1:18-26.
Homosexual desire – and all other sinful desire — exists in the hearts of people because worship of God doesn't. In Adam, we corporately rejected the good rule of God over our lives. And in each of our hearts, we have all individually rejected the good rule of God over our lives. And what has been the result? God has given us over to ourselves. He gave us up to our sinful desire, and has allowed us to revel and further deteriorate in it.
So why didn't God answer my prayer to rid me of my homosexual desires? Because homosexual desires were not my main problem. They were a problem, for sure. But the root of my problem was that I didn't love God or worship Him, and my homosexual desires were just fruit of that, so to speak. God's desire was to fix the root of my issues.
And in 2010, He did just that. He opened my eyes to see all that Jesus Christ is for those who will believe. I finally really saw Jesus as the Son of God who took on flesh and who in humility and incredible graciousness laid His life down for mine. He offered up His life to pay for my guilt in order that I could draw near to God and be given me a new heart; a new heart that loves, adores and worships the one true and incredibly good God.
Am I now straight? Am I now normal? Am I now free from same sex desires and attracted solely to women?
No, no and no.
My heart was changed instantaneously when I trusted in Christ and began to follow Him, but my mind was not. I now have a heart that genuinely loves God and desires to worship Him, but at the same time, I'm still utterly messed up and damaged by sin. The Lord is working in me and renewing my mind day by day, shaping me more and more into the reflection of Him that I was created to be. But it's been a process. And it will continue to be a process until I receive a new, perfect and sinless body in the age to come. When that day comes, the fullness of what Jesus purchased for me will be given to me: full freedom from every sinful thing that restrains my enjoyment and worship of God.
But even now, in this messed up damaged flesh, I have experienced some change in my sexuality over the past four years. I can't deny that. And the shifting in my sexual desires is a direct result of my grace-given love for God. I've grown in my disgust of homosexual relations because I see what a twisting and perversion it is of the image of God. And I've grown in my desire for women (specifically, one woman.… I wrote about it here), and maybe even in my desire for marriage, because I see how a one man + one woman marital covenant so beautifully reflects the image of God.
My growing desire for women is the overflow of a growing desire to see God's glory manifested in my life. Plain and simple. I'm not saying that I'm definitely going to get married one day. I might not. I may be single and celibate for the remainder of my sojourning in this world. But either way I will be fine and I will be joyful because my main problem has been fixed. I might not be "straight" or "normal", but I have a new heart, I have Jesus, and I have the Father. And that's all I really need.
Oh my goodness! I just reread what I wrote, and you are so correct!
That was inconsiderate of you to take my carefully thought out post and lift that one phrase out of context in order to destroy the meaning of my message. Listen, everyone is entitled to their own personal relationship with the Creator and how I interpret His message to me is not for you to judge. If Matt, should he read what I wrote, disagrees with me, then he is free to ignore what I have said. However, what he is doing thus far, which is essentially what you recommend, doesn’t seem to be getting to the core of his problem.
It's both inspiring and sad to read through the comments and easy to find those who have commented with authority born of their own beliefs and preconceived opinions, but clearly didn't read what was written.
I think everyone has a built-in addiction to something, but fortunately most of us haven't found it.
And more fortunately still, many of those who have found it, have also found the key to beating it, like the author has spoken of in his testimony and some here have said of themselves.
Amen, amen! God bless you and yours!!
Are you really so sin-ical? There is no salvation in us, none at all. It is all in Christ Jesus. We are victorious through permitting Him to save. He will not shove salvation down anybody’s throat.
Sin is not just a thing that God hates. Sin is also a sign that God is absent in some manner from a life.
Those who accept Christ as Savior do not suddenly have all sin erased from their earthly lives. They do have all their sin covered from the cross. This is a stark necessity by the nature of the case. The reason we strive to leave sin once God has taken us up in salvation, is because of love. Folks who pretend all their sin is extinguished short of arriving in glory are simply wrong. And it requires humility to accept that. It acknowledges that our sin burden really is on God and not on our own selves. We’d like to strut up to God and say look Father, look what I did, no sin... but we can’t. God the Son says look Father, look what I did, that sinner’s sin is now eternally paid for.
Humanity wasn’t created to be like we sadly are today. I have tried however clumsily on my own Freep page to express how voluntary love necessitates the possibility of choosing the wrong thing.
Those sloths and degenerates, along with average sinners and weak-willed folks, are AIDED and ABETTED by a culture that attempts to redefine behaviors as "diseases" (alcoholism and other addictions) or "sexual orientations" (homosexuality) and thereby relieve the individual from taking responsibility. It hurts them because it leaves them mired in their weakness with zero way out.
The wrongness of such well-intended "help" does as much damage to the spirit as the bad behavior itself. The best help anyone can give them is to love the sinner but hate the sin, and to live the TRUTH, which is that a person is responsible for his/her own behaviors, even when genetics/circumstances make one person's road rocky where another person's road is smooth.
Confusing homosexuality with sin, down the road, will be like confusing leprosy with sin was in the ancient world.
Homosexuality USED to be classified a psychological condition. It’s not any more.
As such, there’s not medical research, no search for a cure, for this condition.
Brain and endocrine research is still in the 8-bit stage, while other areas of medical research (the ability to manufacture human tissue and organs that are based on your DNA and have a less than 1 percent reject rate) are in the 32-bit stage, to use a computer metaphor.
Very, very few things in medical science are in the 64-bit stage, and forget about 128 and 256.
Also, don’t forget, there is very little money in cures of any sort, while there are massive jackpots out there for therapies. Type 2 diabetes and cholesterol control meds are still such massive cash cows, and the number of people coming down with this stuff is truly epidemic.
There are many who haven’t got a psychological condition, that go homo ‘because they can’. There is a TON of that in prison. Otherwise heterosexual men engaging in sodomy because its what they’ve got available to them, and ‘why not’. That’s a different issue, and its moral.
There are pedophiles who know they are pedophiles, can’t do anything about it, and take every measure they can to ensure they aren’t a risk to anybody. Between nurture and nature, that’s the way they ended up.
Do they deserve the salvation of Christ? Do they deserve to work and live among us.
It would be easier if there was a medical intervention for something like this, and I believe there can be.
Dennis Prager wrote an AMAZING piece about homosexuality, and how what is going on now is a regression from 1000’s of years of progress. It should be relatively easy to Bing it up. There was a time when a conquering king stripped a vanquished king and sodomized him in front of his people to complete the humiliation of the defeat and to further subjugate the foe. It was used as a way to punish and control, and it wasn’t about ‘lifestyle’ choices, or about homosexuality being a legitimate ‘gender type’.
Starting with the Jews, marriage, and family, that began to change.
Anyway, there are folks with legitimate medical issues, and those that decide to try it because they can. Two different matters entirely.
Homosexuals have a right to pursue a cure, just as pedophiles do. That right is being denied them.
Responsible in what manner, however.
If this is one more attempt to smuggle a “bear your own burden on your own shoulders” into the gospel, it is simply abomination.
Good post — amen!
I think drug use, or any addiction for that matter, is of the opposite sort: the instant gratification that appeals to the control freak within. "Feel bad? Do this and instantly feel better."
God usually or often doesn't work that way.
Instead, He walks with us from one end of the obstacle course to the other, rather than instantly taking us to the end.
As a result, we grow stronger emotionally, spiritually and in our love for God.
He knows what He's doing and He knows us better than we will ever know ourselves.
All praise and glory to God, the Supreme Healer!
Get off your high horse, especially if you think you have ANY business at all trying to intervene with ANYTHING other than love when it comes to a person struggling with alcoholism, addiction, homosexuality, or any other sin.
It is presumptuous of you to think you have ANY role at all, except to do the two main jobs God gave you: to love Him with all your heart and soul, and to love others as you love yourself.
I thought my alcoholism was a curse. I see now that it is one of my best and biggest blessings. God used it to help me find Him. If you have a hard time accepting the truth of the bible, that God places different burdens on different people because He knows that the ONLY way they'll be able to handle those burdens is through Him ... that's your problem.
I came to realize that what I at first thought was a burden, was in fact a GIFT.
Sin is also a sign that God is absent in some manner from a life.
All humans are sinners, every single one of us. Thus God is absent in some manner from every single life. That is what you are saying, though to what end is beyond me and I think beyond you, as well.
We're supposed to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. All the Law and the Prophets hang on those two commandments.
Whether or not you think God is absent from the sinner's life has zilch to do with your own duty to that sinner and to God.
God is love -- the bible says so CLEARLY and OFTEN.
Courage and Encourage [spiritual support for persons w/ same-sex attraction who are striving...
Amen!
Some times the answer is “no”.
Or, “not now.”
God has a way to cover sin. If that is not good enough for us, that is our fault, not God’s fault.
No, you could not help yourself... if you continue to think you could or have, you have only set up an achilles’ heel for yourself. It is pardonable but not excusable before God.
You can only accept the help that God provides. And no that won’t be the ability of crediting one minute of righteousness to any agency other than Him.
I say it to a very distinct and clear end... one of urging the utmost humility.
Sorry, you need to come down off a high horse yourself. Before these, comes acceptance of the loving help God furnishes. And it will embarrass your pride when you do. If you do.
I thought my alcoholism was a curse. I see now that it is one of my best and biggest blessings. God used it to help me find Him.
Well FRiend, it sounds as if you belong to the first group I mentioned:
"The world is full of people who have had the will power and strength to overcome their weaknesses or harmful passions and build successful, productive, rewarding lives."
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