Check That Anger

Have you ever felt like your life is going from one explosion to another?  Feelings of isolation, disconnection, aloneness, insecurities, fear and pain from past failures or hurts done to you.

Left unchecked our emotions, leave us vulnerable to emotional/physical explosions, which not only affect us personally but those around us, our families, friends, work colleagues and neighbors. These explosions come in varying forms, and we cope with it in varying ways.

Let's look at anger. 

Now, anger is not entirely bad.  It's a mechanism to help us discover that we may need to unpack deeper emotions.  Experiencing anger can be yelling or constantly getting frustrated with someone or something. You can respond to others by ignoring them, answering them in short curt ways, using sarcasm, snide or degrading comments. The word of God tells us that what comes out of our mouth is what is coming from our heart. Our heart is what we think. It is the place where we store up all of our experiences (good and bad)

Luke 6:45 is sobering words for us; "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of."

and Proverbs 4:23 which says, 'Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flows springs of life.'

Given these verses, how do we do this? How can we experience a new response other than anger?  It's allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal to you, your heart.  'Search me Lord, see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me to understanding!' Maybe fast for awhile, or remove entertainment, social media, shopping, drinking or whatever you feel like you are turning to, to find comfort. Maybe that is even in relationships if you find your meaning and purpose from others. Listening to the Lord in your quiet place and then allow him to minister healing to the underlying pain or sin that he wants to address.

One of the areas in my life that comes up every once in awhile are my own disappointments in life choices. Truth be told, when I face a situation that reminds me of past failures, or when I don't have a solution to a problem, emotions can come to the surface such as pain, shame and self pity and this begins to paralyze me. I'm reminded of the bullying, broken boundaries, and the sense that I often felt like I lacked more instructions on what I needed to face as an adult. (at the time I had no language to seek help) This caused me to walk in a false sense of independence. Trying to figure out life and all its complexities, with an attitude of  'you can't tell me what to do'. But under all of that is still someone who needs encouragement and guidance.

The best response in all of this is to surrender. To hand over all the disappointments over to Jesus which is a catalyst to healing. Giving Jesus our past poor choices and allowing ourselves to grieve the reasons behind it and then move on is huge. I think that’s the art of forgiveness. Where you forgive others and also forgive yourself, you choose to no longer shame yourself into apathy or self deprecation, which just cripples oneself to moving on toward the prize set before us and lose sight of the good still all around you.

If you find yourself wondering about your explosions, anger, or how you are responding to others, seek out someone to pray with you. Someone who will listen with you to the voice of Jesus who forgives all your sin, who offers you hope even in the face of uncertainty, peace in the midst of turmoil, joy even in your pain and an opportunity to encounter his eternal love that he has for you, each and every day.

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

The Death of Kendra

The Title of this post could bring some question as to what I'm writing about.  Did a friend or someone I know pass away?  Am I writing about someone who has died?

To be frank, yes!  I am writing about a death of some sort, but not a physical death of something but rather an idea and a thought process that used to take up a lot of my time. 

I awoke this morning from a vivid dream.  One that caused me to pause and reflect and think about discipleship and walking life freely in love with God my Father who directs my steps, who places guard rails on the path for my well being, and then exhorts me to walk with others, showing them the love of Jesus.

Psalm 16:5-9 reads:

5The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
  You support my lot.
6The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
  Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.
7I will bless the LORD who has counseled me;
  Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.
8I have set the LORD continually before me;
  Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
9Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;
  My flesh also will dwell securely.

With this in minds, my dream was about this man who went by the name Kendra!  I knew it was me, dressed and living as a woman.  I was with a group of transgendered people both men and women and we were entering into a movie theater.  There were empty seats all around the theater yet none together, so we all sat by ourselves.  The movie was just beginning when a man shouted out obscenities toward the group.  It was degrading and horrific.  I felt in that moment this surge of justice and with all the courage I could muster, I stood up and spoke to the crowd.  I spoke clearly that no one had the right to treat others like that, especially when you have no clue as to who that person is and what they are going through or been through.  

I can't remember everything that I said, but I called for the man who spoke the obscenities to be man enough to stand up!  I expected a large physical man to stand, but a short, thin man appeared.  With remorse in his eyes, I could tell that he was sorry for the words that he had spoken.

When I woke up, I wondered why I had this dream and what the purpose of it was.  The more I meditated on it, I felt like God was saying, "Kenny, Kendra is dead!  Even the thought of Kendra is now dead!"  I felt as if God was reminding me that even though for me, Kendra is dead, we are still called to be like Jesus in how we talk and love those to whom we may not understand.

I look at my life and realize that yes, the thought of being "Kendra" is done!  God has transplanted His ways and His thoughts into my mind and heart.  He had reclaimed my identity and affirmed my gender identity to how He formed and created me to be.  Fully man!  Will old patterns of thought still make it's way to my consciousness?  Of course, that's what defines me as human.  But these thoughts need not control me or cause me to re-think who I am in Christ.  I no longer need to assume a false identity or create one to appease the broken places within me.

I believe that God was showing me in this dream that despite my best efforts, when I take matters into my own hands, Kendra can live, and yet when I submit my life to God...every part of my life, Kenny lives!  In the midst of all of this, I have no right to tear someone down and call out obscenities.  What I felt God saying is GET INVOLVED and get to know people where their at.  When you have no clue on how to respond or what to say, pray that God bring you into people's lives, so you can walk out your faith authentically!  



 

 

He takes what is used!

 

He takes what is used

masked and well hidden

binds every chord

and nail deeply drive.

stanza taken from "It was no mistake" by Paula Warkentin

 

 

What happens when we don't see the fruit of our faithful prayers?  When the loved ones we so desparately pray for, seem so distant and far off?  When our minds go to "whats the use anyway?'

 

Our hearts become cold and indifferent and its now easy to turn our blame toward God and insist that He just hasn't done it to our satisfaction nor our liking.  Why is it so difficult?  Why isn't God answering?  WHY GOD WHY?

 

To be honest, I don't have the answer.  I'd like to think that no one has the answer, or at least not a pat answer to make someone who is in the place feel better.  I ponder this though, because I see prayers not answered all the time, or at least not the way we want them answered. 

 

God in his sovereignty is in control of everything.  He is the most powerful Creator that has ever existed and who will ever exist...for all eternity.  If we believe this, we can also believe that because of his sovereignty that everything passes through his hands.  Be it the good, bad and ugly.  Does it mean he is indifferent or uncaring?  Does it mean that he turns his eyes when bad things happen or when people make choices that are not the best ones to make? 

 

We all are a product of the fall.  We are born into sin.  So right from the beginning that is our inherent struggle.  Not so that we can make light of sin or blame something or someone else, but rather it's important to understand that to some degree, this is our human heritage.  Our flesh wages war with the spirit.  We do the things we don't want to do and we don't do the things we want to do.  Simple yet so complex in many ways.

 

Couple this with the cultural influences and the spirits and authorities that also wage war on our souls, we are fighting a bigger fight than maybe we even realize.  We fight this war in our own lives and for those we pray and fast for.  When our prayers seemingly do not go answered, the enemy can have a party with our mind and heart.  Bringing doubts that nothing is happening, that we are ineffective, that there must be something wrong with us, that God is silent and disinterested in our prayers or our loved one.  Our hearts can grow bitter, cold, angry toward God.

 

In reality...GOD IS NOT SILENT.  Everything passes through God's hands and so everything is purposeful...even the bad, horrible things that happen.  If he knows the number of stars, the amount of hair on our heads.  If he imagined us even before our parents ever did, do you not think he cares?  He is a just God who allows us to walk in the freedom of choice and free will, not wanting us to be robots or puppets in his hand, he gives us that freedom with hopes that when we reach maturity that we are sold out for his purposes in our lives and we serve him whole heartedly for the rest of our lives. 

 

Sound idealistic?  Euphoric even?  Maybe too good to be true?  For many of us, we struggle with emotioanal and relational deficits in our lives that  cause us to grow up with deep needs still unmet.  If we are not given the opportunity for God to come in and heal and fill those areas we will fill them ourselves.  With many things that are good for us, and many things that aren't.  If God isn't the center of that deficit, we miss the mark.    It's not so much that God is silent, rather we have taken our neediness into our own hands, numbing our emotions so that we have a very hard time hearing God and that still small voice speaking to us.

 

I can look at the many ways I silenced that voice in my life, the voice of my heavenly Father calling me, speaking to me, telling me truth about who I was as his son and my value and worth to him.  Rather than listen, I listened to myself, I listened to the enemy of my soul, the one who comes to kill and destroy, the one who prowls around like a hungry lion, waiting for someone to devour.  I got eaten, chewed up, and spit out...but I wasn't dead?  I felt dead, I acted dead, but I wasn't.  God was still speaking...and many people continued to pray...long and hard for me, not giving up, even though they may have felt like it.  I eventually heard his voice and he is now cleaning me up from years of yuck, grim and lies that were fed to me and ones I believed.

 

I continue to pray for friends, family and even those to whom I have never met who are caught up in identities and actions that are far from the best for them.  Who have been lied to, cheated, and robbed, not by God, but rather by an enemy who hates them.  I pray without ceasing and long for the day when one, two, three...and many more come to know who they truly are, loved sons and daughters of the most high King, the creator of everything.  That they know that nothing has been wasted and that God will and does use everything the enemy meant for harm...for HIS GOOD and for HIS GLORY.

 

Let's remember to keep praying, to keep fasting and keep believing God's promises are true, that He does answer prayer and that through Jesus, He does redeem lives.

 

James 5:16 (NLT)

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

 

 



Trans....ition!

Gender identity can be very complex and complicated. Each persons who struggles with their gender identity is unique and precious in Jesus' eyes. He looks at the heart and not so much the outer appearance.

How many times do we base all our assumptions just on the outward and have no clue as to what it happening on the inside? Sometimes we may think, "oh...if __________ just got their life together, everything would be great. If they could just look and act like everyone else...you know...not be so out of place!"

I wonder a lot about how we welcome people into our lives, families and the body of Christ. I wonder how we welcome those who just don't quite fit our definitions or even our conveniences. It got me thinking of when I was gay identified.

When I came out at 30...it shocked a lot of people. Mostly because my journey was pretty isolated to my own self. I didn't let a lot of people in to see my internal struggles. Recently God has been healing my own perceptions of gender distortions. For years, I secretly longed to be a female. This began in my early years (probably around the age of 5 or 6). I didn't at that time pronounce that I wanted to be a girl, I just felt out of place and awkward in my body. I didn't want to be a boy...and I saw all these girls that played with dolls, dressed up and I liked that. I wished I could do all of that, so I began interpreting that "I was a mistake, that I wasn't like other boys and that I should have been a girl." Now, if I was affirmed as a boy (that masculinity is really caring for others...being gentle to dolls, and creative...dressing up) maybe with the help of good interpretation of my recording that distortion may not have happened. So internally I struggled with my sense of gender. Secretly dressing up in my mother/sisters clothes and when no one was around, I bound myself, wore make up and tried to look convincing. Early on...I certainly did. I prided myself in looking like a girl. I didn't have a word for this longing or desire. I found out later through the internet and through Television that this was "trangender". It kinda fit for me. Maybe this was why I was attracted to the same sex. Maybe it was because I was born in the wrong body...that God really did make a mistake, that somehow my DNA and hormones were screwed up. This was a birth defect!!!

But the idea of talking about this with my family, with those around me (small town) was totally unacceptable. I resigned deep within me that maybe someday I would transition. So in secret, I dressed up. Until I came out as gay identified, I began playing with make up, dressing up and eventually would go out in public on Halloween or other occasions dressed as a woman...always in the safety of the fact that it was now deemed "drag". I over exaggerated the "look" of being a female. I was pretty convincing on a few occasions. I went so far as to even ask my partner if I ever did want to transition would he be okay with it. Surprisingly he was.

So deep down, there was always this longing to transition. Some of the things that stopped me was the extensive surgery, the apparent need for plastic surgery to make my face more feminine (softer lines, smaller nose, removing the adam's apple, electrolysis, implants and the necessary removal of my genitalia. Even though growing up I hated my anatomy, I couldn't think of that. Maybe internally it meant that I would no longer be able to father a child (naturally). I know that I thought a lot about it and it sometimes consumed me with fantasy and dreams and hopes of a different life as a woman.

Today, I was reminded of God's saving grace and mercy. How almost 7 years ago, He showed me a bigger picture and began restoring my broken gender identity. My identity as a male and my security in my body is almost 180 degrees different. There are days when the residuals of my past creep in, old thought patterns and thinking try to overwhelm me. When I see men who on the outside appear stronger more capable more confidant than me and the insecurities try to consume me, I remind myself that I am a good gift right where I am at. That in my own mess, God is the one who continual cleans and affirms me. It is His voice that is the one of acceptance and worth.

My life is not perfect, I don't have it all together, I sometimes act quite different than those around me, sometimes I am awkward in social settings and say or do things others wouldn't. I am reminded all the time that I am not out of place. Jesus welcomes me to the foot of the cross and there standing beside me is other children of God. The seemingly "put together pastor", the drunkard, the prostitute, the orphan, the widow, the mother, sister, brother, father, co-worker, neighbor, teenager, gay, lesbian, transgender, two spirited, queer, adulterer, liar, thief, gossiper, those who envy, covet, idolators, the rich, the poor. The list goes on.

At the cross we lay down our broken lives and hope is put into us. Extravagant mercy is extended to us. With that extravagance is this amazing gift of grace and truth. Truth to who we are created to be. Truth of the glorious inheritance that we have and importance of our gender and sexual identities.

Psalm 50...reads well of this beautiful grace and mercy as well as discipline and hope. It ends with "But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God."

Lord Jesus...I give you thanks for opening my eyes, giving me new vision to see the importance of my gender. How you created me is no mistake, I honor my body as your creation. I am thankful that I didn't put it into the hands of others nor distorted and changed it to be something else. Jesus, I plead that you would meet each of us where we are at, would you give new sight. Bring a revelation of your mercy and love and pour out true understanding to your children...and those not yet your children. Bring clarity to our sense of gender and sexual identities...that are not based on others views, but of yours. Amen

From Captivity to Community

I just attended a conference in Wisconsin called Exodus International Regional Conference. It was a great time to connect with people who have been impacted in some way with same gender attraction. Some people came because of a spouse struggling with gender identity; some came to understand their friends or relatives who identify as gay. Most of the people who graced the conference, however, struggle themselves with same gender attraction. They have realized that fixing themselves is impossible and they are desperate to find healing and understanding of why they struggle. In that desperation they long to find a safe community.

On Sunday, people shared how the weekend had impacted them. A few people said they were scared to come. "What if I am attracted to someone?" "What happens if someone finds me attractive?" One man stood up and said, "It's like saying to an alcoholic, to find your healing you need to go to a bar and be faced with your temptation." Yet that is the very thing that someone who has a disconnect with his/her gender needs to do. When you struggle with same gender attraction, often you feel that you need to get away from that which tempts you-your own gender. Yet that is the very place you find your greatest healing. These men and women faced real fear to come to the conference in search of an accepting community.

I heard heart-wrenching stories that weekend. Many who struggle with same gender attraction have been rejected within their church communities because people are worried about inappropriate attraction. Men and women who struggle with same gender attraction are often tempted by their own genders, but those relationships are also the place where they find the greatest healing.

A Safe Place to Heal:

In my own journey out of a gay paradigm, I realized that in order to heal I had to be known and know other men in healthy ways. I couldn't allow my fear to dictate how I related to them. I had to step out into an unknown place, first with an utter dependence on God, my source of strength. Without that, I had no foundation. I had to have men who took the risk to be my friend. Who shared their own journey into manhood and their own struggles, allowing me to see that I am not as "different" as I had always assumed I was. I needed men to give me physical touch. To be unafraid to offer a hug, to embrace me as a brother, pure, healthy and whole. When I left the gay identity, I was walking away from a lot of physical touch. Physical touch that I needed - and it is a legitimate need - but it was found in unhealthy ways and outside the boundary lines of God's intent for me.

I am always encouraged as I attend conferences such as this where people know their need, face their fears and know that they are in a safe community. Sadly, this is often not found in their own communities of faith. More often, they feel pressure to be something they are not. To hide their struggle. This goes even beyond someone who struggles with their gender, but also with parents who have gay or lesbian children, or spouses of those who struggle. They fear judgement on who they are. This keeps them bound in secret and held captive by the enemy.

We all need each other. We need authentic, safe places to walk out our healing and face every issue that life may spring on us. If we don't find that authentic community within the Body of Christ, we will find it outside of that. We will find that in the arms of culture who will embrace our false identities, who will validate our anger, our unforgiveness, and our own ways of getting our needs met. May God give us the strength to rise up and take our place as safe and honest healing communities.