Orientation Crazy

There are so many voices, so many books and I couldn't be more happy and sad at the same time.  You see, never in my life have I seen or heard so many people talking at the table with regards to gender and sexuality.  It's in the news, on social media and most likely a topic that everyone of us will enter into with someone.

Maybe it's with a family member or friend who struggles with their sense of gender identity or sexuality and it could be with someone who doesn't struggle but fully embraces an orientation or identity within the LGBTQ descriptive.

I get it!  Having struggled with gender identity issues and unwanted same sex attraction, and then coming out gay identified, I get it.  I get the notion of needing and wanting to have a sense of congruence with how I felt in regards to my orientation.  I wanted to carry the card that said, "I AM GAY...and if I want to transition to a woman...that is my RIGHT! Just get over it already!"  I spent years trying to fit in with what I thought a heterosexual man was, and even more, what a Christian Heterosexual Man was supposed to be.  I tried not to show any signs of 'gayness!' or that I might secretly desire to be wearing women's clothes, and the more I tried to hide, the more I struggled to find normalcy.  I definitely wasn't living authentically or true to my 'feelings' but how was I supposed to live my life?

So eventually the hiding stopped and I came out.  GLORY BE, I WAS FREE!!  I could breathe, I could relate to others with similar stories and I could finally say..."This is how I was to be all along!" I lived like this for almost 8 years, with a strong sense of my orientation.  This is how I was created, this is how I was called to live my life.  I wasn't acting, or playing gay and I was no longer trying to act as a heterosexual man.

I was orientation CRAZY!

You couldn't tell me that I was anything else, because if God didn't eradicate the 'unwanted feelings' toward the same gender, then they should really be my authentic self.  Sigh of relief.  In my many circles of friendships this was often the mantra.  We didn't 'talk' about why we might feel this way, we just always said 'this is who we are'.
Then God did a funny thing.  Well, it wasn't necessarily funny, but it was life changing for me.  He spoke to me! In a moment when I was at a crossroads, I allowed myself to 'crack' just a little...I asked him for help and he spoke clearly.  He didn't say in a booming voice, "Thou Shall Not be GAY, Thou Shall Not be Transgendered!"  He said, "You don't have to go back to Egypt!"

What resonated was my orientation.  I knew God was saying I don't have to be gay identified, nor transgender identified nor heterosexual identified!  I knew God was saying; "Kenn,  your orientation is me!  PERIOD!"  The joy of the Lord in that moment was my strength, it filled me completely and was probably overflowing all over the place.  I would love to see that moment from above...what did I look like?  Was I glowing?  All I knew is that it felt like scales falling off my eyes and I could see clearly and know that this was HUGE!

I became crazy about orienting my vision and my identity in Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal more and more of Jesus, who in relationship with me, revealed my heavenly father who had always wanted my gaze to be on HIM ONLY.  Not on my life, my own sense of orientation, my desires etc.  He was saying "Come follow me!"  Will you lay down everything to follow me?"  Absolutely!

I knew as well that my journey would be hard.  It wouldn't be easy to swim upstream.  When I laid down the gay orientation label, it was by far, way easier in culture to be gay identified. What was I thinking?  Couldn't I just be a gay celibate Christian?

The temptation was there, yet it now felt in-congruent with who God was saying I was.  I was a new creation, created for his glory.  I was slowly being transformed more and more into who he had created me to be and that was toward his Holiness.

So, my orientation shifted and so did my language.  All things were being made new and this is good news.  Culture dictates and even many Christian's say: to be authentic with how one thinks and feels is critically important. To life healthy is to not deny your 'orientation'.  Yet, one can authentically say, this is how I feel, this is what I desire, Jesus help me in the journey and point me to my heavenly Father whose love is so radical and sweet...so much so that I'm compelled to lay down my life and find it in Christ, and in the body of Christ.  Relevancy is not in becoming more and more like culture, but rather more and more like Christ, who denied himself and took up the cross to set us free, to live fully present, fully aware within the body of Christ.

I write this because this story is not uncommon.  Thousands of men and women share a similar story and we are part of the make up of a diverse society.  A society that would like to say, our voice is not to be heard.  That we are 'acting' rather than 'being' authentically ourselves and yet we can honestly say, "Who the Son sets free is free indeed!" 

I'm a nobody...and so much more

Nobody wants to be a nobody.

Seriously, if you think about it for a moment, you have an innate desire to be 'somebody' or 'something'.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"  For the longest time my daughter wanted to be a vet.  That changed when she realized she didn't like blood...and she might have to do stuff that is really gross!  Then she wanted to be a teacher.  This is slowly changing and the other day she said she wanted to work at a spa!  Oh, my precious one!  I hope one day she comes to the place of realizing that she is a nobody, created to be a somebody.

Here's the thing.  This morning while I was at a city wide prayer meeting I saw all our titles being thrown to the ground.  All our duties, job descriptions, the ways 'we' describe ourselves and the deficits that we still live with and all of it was rubbish and thrown out and what was left was just abiding in Jesus, and living in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, knowing the affections of our Heavenly Father.

Here in this place of total surrender, nothing hinders us.  We can no longer say... "I can't serve because...I can't do that because...I'm not strong enough because...I'm too weak because...I don't know enough yet because...I'm not qualified, because..."

The moment we said yes and amen to Jesus' work of salvation/gospel message and we've been baptized, we are a 'new creation, created to do His good deeds that he has established for us to do...long before we even said...YES!

So nothing else matters.

I continue to struggle with the residuals of being gay identified, and authentically walk out my same gender attractions, and have done great work in the whole area of searching my heart, asking Jesus to heal and restore many deficits, and yet what remains is the residuals of sin...but I can't use any of that to stop me from doing what HE calls me to do, which is to be the Spiritual Head of my home, to love and call forth my wife and child and to make disciples of all nations.  That means, fear, insecurities, esteem issues, identity issues, deficits...all take second place to trusting God with what he tells me to do, and the submission of all authority in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, who equips me with all wisdom and knowledge to do what pleases God.  Not out of duty or to check something off a list but to really do it out of a love relationship that come from abiding in him and being obedient.

So today, I cried out to him for more...that he would continue to form and create in me a new person, the old has gone the new has come...and I told him, I'm scared...but I won't back down to what HE wants to do, because it isn't about me, I'm a nobody, created to be a somebody, to further His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.

Today, if you feel like you are stuck in fear, insecurities, and maybe a list of "I can't...or...I'm scared!" That is the best place to start, in acknowledging your need of the Holy Spirit, Jesus and God.
Call out to him while He is near, and He will show you the way to go...and do what pleases him.

Psalms 1-5
Proverbs 1

Living Love

Well, it seems my writing and personal journal writing this past year kinda bit the dust. All good intentions flew out the window in what was a very difficult year on many levels. In retrospect, I was managing life, but that was about it.  There wasn't a lot of capacity or reserve to do much else.  Living with someone with a Chronic illness can put excess pressure on the whole house, and I learned much in this season about myself and my own propensity toward 'dark days'.  I had many upward moments (the ups!) in the midst of the down (dark) days, and as I look back I have chosen to cherish all the days, all the moments, because I was alive and God gave me breath.  Each day whether easy, difficult or just plain neutral was a gift to us and we can either forget all about it or we can learn and grow from the experience.  I want to grow.

Entering into 2018, I wondered..."Will life look any different? What will life look like?" and as I thought about it, I began to see that all God is asking for me at the moment is to live love. Not so much a focus on love living, but to live love out of His empowerment for His glory. You see my understanding of 'love living'  is to think that everything will be rosy, dandy, and of my choosing.  That somehow I can love living through experiences that I make and yet I want something deeper than experiential opportunities.  I was to live love, despite the circumstances that I may face whether good or bad.

It's a manifesto of sorts, to proclaim and declare that one will live love rather than love living.  To some this will sound rather redundant or you can't have one without the other, or the later is a by product of living love, but I think if we decide to seek first the Kingdom of God and ALL his righteousness and choose to live love in every situation, circumstance and experience, we can in the good times and the difficult times learn in very essence the art of loving life.

Practically speaking, I think it looks a whole lot like the fruits of the spirit: Kindness, gentleness, self control, patience, goodness, joy, faithfulness, peace...and the greatest of all...love.

Choosing to live love means to be cloaked in love...and we can't have this fully unless we are seeped in the Holy Spirit.  Declaring each day the Holiness of God our Father, who extravagantly loves.  Asking for the fullness of our day..."Give us this day...", guarding against evil, sin, patterns of selfishness, walking as ones forgiven and ones offering forgiveness...and laying down our lives to serve only one master...God. (Matthew 6)

To live love is to radically choose the opposite of how we may feel on any given moment and to choose to depend fully on the empowerment of the Holy Spirit who is revealing Jesus, who equips us with everything we need to live life to the full, not for our glory or fame but for his.  To God be the Glory and furthering of His Kingdom.  AMEN