There is one regret I think will follow me into eternity, and that is allowing the Church to take from me my walk with God; years lost forever. Through willful ignorance and maybe something more, Bible translators, knowing full well the questionable use of wording, went ahead full force with the most damnable meaning to do the most harm.
I made a conscious decision to turn from God. I was reading Romans 1 in my room one night as a boy, and I saw Jesus disappear before my very eyes. The creature that was described wasn’t me, but here’s the Word of God telling me that this was my lot in life given to me over feelings I had no choice over. I hated God because I thought he hated me first, and bad Christian behavior towards me as a boy solidified that belief. I grew to become an angry, defensive man, wanting nothing to do with God. Though my belief in him did not go away, He was something to ignore.
I lived my life, and it worked for a while, but life didn’t make sense, and the few things in it that did would later feel empty and pointless. I was self-absorbed and blaming God, a ghost watching life from the outside in, not really living. I wanted some end from whatever this existence was.
The Bible says even though we are faithless, God remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). I was about to see those words play out.
I became friends with the son of a co-worker, and our friendship grew over the weeks. I found he had the same religious upbringing that I did. Like myself, he lost his faith because of the words in the Bible.
Weeks turned to months, and I fell in love with him, and he with me.
As the years went by, we would talk about God and the Bible, but only after drinks that ended in drunken fights. Oddly, I found myself defending the Bible in these fights. I knew what he said came from hurt, so I would downplay what looked like a condemnation of us from Scripture because I was still Bible smart. My words stayed with me in the morning.
I never knew, like I know now, that God was using my own arguments to work into my heart, telling me what He always wanted me to hear, with me as the instrument. In trying to heal this man’s hurt, God was healing my own, with the very Bible words I hated. God waited patiently, holding me in His perfect course, working according to His own timing to bring me to a place of understanding, and I came back to my walk of faith one night after pleading my case before the Lord in a dark room, on a long night (Isaiah 41:21).
That man became my husband, Russell.
Some scars take longer to heal for others.
I found out God waited patiently, holding me in His perfect course, working according to His own timing to bring me to a place of understanding, and I came back to my walk of faith one night after pleading my case before the Lord in a dark room, on a long night (Isaiah 41:21).
During all this, I knew my homosexuality was neither a good nor bad thing; it simply existed. This unnecessary war over it was of my own making, with the Church playing no small part in putting me in this war they said I needed to fight. Like with a heterosexual drive and desire; I could either dedicate it to God, or abuse it and one day answer for that abuse to God.
I went to scripture again and was willing to accept whatever I saw and not what others told me to see. I hunted down what context these scriptures were given in, in what settings these translations formed, by what intents, and how they evolved; including why and for whom the Biblical passages were written. What I found brought perfect harmony between what Paul wrote and the rest of his words that were inspired and spoken by love, called the Bible, with what I can only describe as a Holy understanding only the Holy Spirit can bring, and what would later be a call to ministry only He could give me.
Some have come to a different conclusion.
All I can say is this.
Love found me, and love gave me my answer. Nothing is by chance. If I am wrong, I would rather be in error on the side of mercy than of judgment. I would rather extend God's love too far than not far enough. Others will say that I’m being deceived, but a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:22-30). Satan will not go against himself to bring a false inclusion with the Word if it might even bring the possibility of true Salvation. The Enemy uses only roadblocks, not inroads that could lead to God.
We all have to work out our own salvation. It’s a work only we can do through nothing short of fear, tears, and trembling (Philippians 2:12). My sexuality didn’t change.
I did.
Let me emphasize, and I can't say this enough: obedience to the Word of God is first and foremost, above any personal revelation, feeling, or belief.
All the more reason we need to understand exactly what the Word says so we can make a “Just Judgment” (John 7:24).
Jesus told the Sadducees they made a mistake in their long-held understanding of Scripture (Mark 12:24-27). Now is the time to look at the prejudice of uninspired men in the Body of Christ and move away from this stubbornness with not wanting to let go of how they believe, what God equates with idolatry (1 Samuel 15:23) that was always a Tradition of Men on homosexuality, and not of God.
Excluding gays from fellowship never sat well in the collective conscience of true Believers who have the love of Christ, but they violated their conscience because they believed they were following the Bible. Paul said this is like a shipwreck (1 Timothy 1:19).
Church Tradition, once we’ve made it a part of biblical belief, is the hardest thing to cast away; but until the Body of Christ leaves its sacrifice at the altar (Matthew 5:23,24) and goes asking for forgiveness for the pain it’s caused so many for so long in that community, its gifts will never be acceptable to God and the winds of revival they seek will never come.
The Holy Spirit started a work in me that continues every day, and why I write this now.
For you.
Like the disciple Peter walking on water, I have to always be seeing Jesus, or I start to sink into the dark depths of doubt and the drowning voices of others. But even then, weak and tired, His hand reaches down, lifts me up, and says that I am His.
*I first posted my testimony in 2010 on, "The Gay Christian Network." The first and only forum for LGBTQ Christians at the time, It was read by hundreds.
When I posted it on this weblog in 2012, it was read by thousands.
When I started to link it on social media over the years, it was, and still is, being read by countless from around the world (Statcounter app).
Most will reject it; the few will find their freedom in Christ because of it.
