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!" 

Exodus Closes Down Part 2

(previously printed in the Christian Courier)

Exodus International was a non-profit, interdenominational, ex-gay Christian organization with the goal of helping people who wished to limit their homosexual desires. It was founded in 1976, but ceased activities in June 2013, issuing a statement which repudiated its aims and apologized for the harm their pursuit has caused to LGBT people. Last month, Kenny shared some of his initial thoughts on the closure of Exodus International, with reflections on how Exodus impacted his life as a “spiritual booster shot, which equipped him to go home to what can be a dry and weary land.” This month, he continues with thoughts about living under God’s sovereignty in the middle of a community of sinful people.

 I firmly believe that we worship a Sovereign God. We don’t often rejoice in God's sovereignty. Why? Because we are human and our minds cannot comprehend the vast expanse of God’s plan for all human-kind and our place in this plan. In this place we are called to live in a mess. The mess of uncertainty, pain and sorrow caused by the effects of sin. We are called to walk with others through the consequences of relational, emotional and sexual messes. Not a place for the faint of heart, but an actual calling for each member of the body of Christ to embrace.

  Through the devastating loss of three babies by miscarriage, I have learned to sit with people in grief, with no easy answer. To cry with them as they hurt, to serve them in a practical way. I’ve learned that we are not called to give an easy answer but to sit with our hurting family members and to sometimes just keep our mouth shut as we each struggle with God’s sovereignty over our lives, sometimes in painful ways.

  Exodus International attempted to help many people, walking with them in their messes, but now it has closed. Maybe Exodus International had become an idol to some. Maybe it was deemed the only place where people could find solace in their journey with their gender and sexuality. Maybe that was never God’s intention for his bride. Some people in the midst of the journey to closing Exodus were hurt by things said. They perceived and interpreted things and through that experience came to different conclusions. Does this mean we lay blame on the whole organization? Does this mean it has failed everyone?

Our God reigns

 For me personally, I am not distraught with the closure of Exodus International. I have received much, for which I will be forever grateful. I have met amazing people, who continue to encourage and inspire me. No matter the motive of those involved with the decisions, I hold to the truth that God is in control. I choose to not speak ill of my brothers and sisters, but to pray for them, to encourage them and to spur them on toward the prize set before us.

James 1:26-27 reads: “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

  There are many people within the church that agrees with Exodus and the direction they are currently headed. Some would call those people heretics. There are people outside the church who are applauding and celebrating the closure. We may not agree with the decisions that were made, yet we can choose to recognize that God in his Sovereignty is in control. Regardless of what has happened with Exodus International, even if we don't understand or fully agree with the decisions made, we can agree that God is sovereign, he is in control, and he is calling us to do his will. His will is to seek the kingdom of God, to walk with others, and to always be ready to share the hope within us. To endure till the end, to hold fast to the Word of God and to pray that the Holy Spirit illuminate it within us and to pray that we not fall away to easy, watered-down theology. A theology that would appease our sinful desires. So, rejoice in the sovereignty of God over our messes, even the current mess caused by the closing of Exodus International.

Feelings vs Truth...Who's in your corner?

Hebrews 3:12-13

Be careful...make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.  You must warn each other every day, while its still "today", so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.  (NLT)

Do you have someone in your life who speaks truth?  Who encourages and spurs you toward Christ and His likeness?  Who cares for you and in doing so speaks into areas in your life where they see could use some encouragement or work?  Who will walk with you in your journey of faith?

I think of our need for community and the need to have others spur us onward toward the completion of the race set before us.

Jeremiah 17:9 reads "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?"

Proverbs 28:26 reads  "Those who trust in themselves (heart) are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe."

Wisdom is the word of God...the living, breathing, relevant word of God which is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  It is our bread and our sustenance and we can't live without it.  When we base our motives on our heart feelings, we can easily be strayed off course and onto paths which may feel good, but are far from the best for us and lead us to destruction.

I listened to my heart once and began to base my identity on how I felt, rather than the word of God.  I began silencing out solid, mature believers and trusted my heart feelings!  This led me to the path of identifying myself as a gay man who believed because I felt this way my, my sexuality was set and I controlled it.

How many of us make decisions based on the sole merit of our feelings?  When I proposed to my wife I had definite feelings for her or I wouldn't have married her.  But I also knew that God was calling me to marry her and that I had total peace as I knew this was ordained by Him.    Do my feelings change on a day to day basis as I live out married life?  You bet.  Some days it's easy to love well and to get along and we find our groove!  But there are days when it's slugging through difficult communication, misinterpretations, sleep deprivation, and child rearing.  In those times, I need to know that I have a solid foundation of covenant, commitment, perseverance, faith and I find that these are wise pieces of truths that I find in the word of God and go beyond a feeling.  It's a mindset of being committed regardless of how I feel.

I need Jesus desperately everyday to walk this out and I need my family the body of Christ to do this as well.  I need trusted brothers and sisters to speak truth to me if they see me dabbling in things I shouldn't.  I need these broken vessels to encourage me and spur me toward the goal set before me.  When I begin to veer off the path...who's there to help me?  If I have no one, I will merrily go this way and that.

So whose in your corner?  Who knows you and your heart and your life?  Who has authority to speak truth in love to you, even if it makes you boil inside, yet you know it's truth?  Who are you submitted to?

Find a good person, not a perfect person (because there isn't one), to be that person who will challenge you and who you can challenge, and thank God for them.  Pray that God brings people into your life who won't just allow you to feel good, but will challenge your 'feelings' and spur you toward holiness and the race set before you.  It's not easy and each one of us can be easily strayed by appeasing things that tug at our heart.

  

Bending the knee...

Today, I read another announcement from a young Christian leader welcoming discussion on "why he is dating men" and that he would do this the healthiest way possible because of his relationship with God.

For many people they would embrace this and celebrate his liberty and freedom and yet for me, my heart grieved.  I felt deep sadness in the statement he made.  There was no rejoicing.  My first words out of my mouth were "Lord have mercy!"  I was immediately drawn to the prodigal story.  My thoughts on all of this are for those who are believers...who have been enlightened to the truth of Jesus Christ and the full Gospel. 

Here we have a loving Father who has a son who wants desperately to go his own way.  The son sees all that he has and wants out.  He wants his freedom.  Maybe he felt too confined within the parameters of his Fathers standard.  So his goal is to get what is due him and leave.  So his father gives to him what he is owed (his inheritance) and he goes his own way.  Maybe to find himself...who he really is.  We may think the father would take a passive response...just get on with life, but he would have continually gone to the road to see if his son was coming back...day after day, month after month, year after year.  Maybe people would have mocked the Father...told him to just get on with it, forget about the son, yet I don't see the Father doing that...he waits for the day of his sons return.

Now the son...wanting liberation tries this and that to see what appeals to him.  Living his life to the fullest.  He no longer lives under the confines of his Fathers standard.  He is able to do what pleases him.  He is able to do everything that feels right.  Why would his father not allow him this freedom?  Such a backwards father, stuck in the dark ages of religion, could well have been his thoughts.  Why would a loving Father not allow me to be who I want to be and express that however I feel like?
Until it all crashes around him...when the money is gone...his friends leave and he is left alone.

As I write this...can we link this with an aspect of God handing us over to our desires and our own lusts?  Slowly and inevitably we begin to bend and accept an even broader realm of sexual expression?  We bend our knee not to God but now to a cultural humanistic expression of "what feels good".

What I imagined in this whole scenario and discussion is this:

The "church" the "bride of Christ" is adopting a definition of grace that allows us to go with our feelings.  If we do this then nothing is unacceptable.  Seriously.  Think about it.

I feel attracted to the same gender.  It's not going away as much as I want and so I'm going to still LOVE God with my whole heart and date those of the same gender.  (bending the knee)

I feel attracted to young children and this has never left me.  For as long as I know I have had this attraction so I am going to date young children.  (bending a knee)

I'm married and feel attracted to your spouse and so I'm going to leave my spouse for your spouse.  (bending a knee)

I struggle with same gender attraction and I still feel that attraction, but I'm married.  So I'm going to leave my spouse and take a position that this is what God had for me all along. (bending a knee)

I'm in love with an animal and they love me.  (bending a knee)

I'm in love with my father's wife and she loves me, so we're going to get together.  (bending a knee)

When does the bending stop?  When we begin the dialogue of one issue, we begin the dialogue of another.  We begin to lose the foundation set before us of Godly, healthy sexuality.  Designed and created by God.  Because inevitably, we stop the dialogue!  We stop being generous and gracious!  Because we will view those who hold a standard of faith and a value that sexuality is a sacred and holy expression only in the pastures of a monogamous marriage between one man and one woman as hateful and archaic and unattainable to those in the margins.  That we are being mean and unsympathetic to those who face something different as their reality.  If we welcome the bending of the knee we actually have to lay something down, I have to sacrifice something.  What we lay down is the standard set before us, not from an archaic God who is just out to get us, break us, pound us, enslave us, but one who knows the good of what is best for us in a broken and sinful world.  Who calls us into the fullness of life with Him and to live within the boundary lines that have fallen in good pasture.

Can we use the theory that because we live in a fallen and broken state, if my sexuality is broken than it's okay to embrace my broken sexuality and that God will bring it glory.  We can make license by saying the Church has a double standard, accepting divorced/remarried people to the church but we won't allow gay Christian's there.  These are all excuses to follow our own desires and place ourselves before God.
We proclaim  "God...it's messed up down here, and since you're not doing anything, I will take matters into my own hands...and oh ya...can you bless me too?"  Can you bless my idol worship?

That goes contrary to who God is.  God won't bless idolatry!  Or can he?  You might say...Kenny, that is a hateful thing to say.  But you know what?  If I don't fear God and holiness...I will seek to sooth people.  To pat them and say...ya...that's okay, keep living in the mud and mire and keep saying it's okay and keep saying God will bless it.  But in all honesty can we say that he hands you over?  Things get more muddled and more welcoming and pretty soon, everything that feels good, is good.

I saw this in my own life.  I began believing that same theology.  I listened to the feel good messages of humanism.  Since I always struggled with same gender attraction and God never took it away, I must be gay and I then cannot deny these feelings anymore.  No one had the right to speak what I didn't want to hear.  You needed to bend to my view and if not...you were hateful and unloving.  "Keep your opinion to your self...you self righteous Christian...who excuses all other sin...but mine..."

Some of that was truth...because the bride was looking pretty messy and bending their knee to easy answers and solutions.  Why stay with your spouse after they had an affair?  You have every right to divorce them?
Falling out of love...this is too hard...okay, lets part ways and find our true love and remarry!  Hard realities of truth?  Maybe!

Yet...I saw for myself a different picture of a loving Father who waited for me...but he also released me to go and live contrary to his heart for me.  He never once blessed my actions and said..."Oh Kenny, what you are doing is great!"  He did say this though "I love you with an everlasting love, can you hear me Kenny?  I have so much more that I want to you show...don't settle for this, because this isn't my best for you!"

I see the end result of the prodigal as the young man sitting in the filth and mud of his own making.  His decisions and actions brought him to the mud and mire and he realizes where he is and what he is doing.  He recognizes that even the servants of his father are treated better than this.  Was he remorseful?  Was he repentant?

I think in the loving arms of his father who ran out to greet him with arms full of compassion, tears washing away the mud and mire, soothing the young mans hurt, a father extended grace in the midst of the sons repentance, now being offered much more than he deserved.  How much more is our Father who calls out to us..."My son...My daughter...I love you...come home!  Don't settle for less than what I have for you, which is so much more than what you deserve...COME let me show you My mysterious ways...I'm waiting!"

What will you give up?

I was listening to an interview this past week and one phrase stuck out for me.  "What will you give up?"

For most of us the idea of giving something up that means a lot to us challenges us and can bring quite a bit of conflict to our humanness.  What happens when this something is particularly engrained in us and something we think cannot be given up?

As I drove to work today, I was pondering life and the complexities of it.  I am amazed at what God has done in the areas of my life that I have given over to him.  Some out of obedience and some with kicking and screaming while others were easy to give up out of a love relationship with an eternal Father.

Today, I got thinking of my gender and my worth as a man.  What came to me was this thought..."Kenny, you could have changed your body with hormones and surgery, but you cannot change the composition of your DNA...the blueprint of how God made you, unique and fully male!"  Maybe with science and the way things are headed we can manipulate and change things around by a human perspective...focusing on being creator rather than acknowledging that we are created beings...designed by God for His glory.

I look at my hands, my features and other bodily parts and recognize the masculine traits on the outside, but what about the ones on the inside that fought with the outward expression.  I couldn't stop the formation of hair on my chest, or the sharpness of my jaw, the thickening of my torso, the shape of my being was in conflict with my inner self that cried out for the softness of the feminine.  I began to hate how I was created rather than be in awe of how I was created.

When God profoundly spoke to me in 2005 and called me out of my Egypt into the wilderness, I knew it was about giving up.  It was to give up control of my life and how I had created and worshiped my life.  It was no longer me that was in charge but God who knows infinitely more than I do and who cares for me with deep compassion.

I had to give up the notion that I was gay and I had to give up the notion that I could have a sex change.  These things were deeply ingrained in me for years.  I remember vividly a time when my mom after catching me wear her clothes say "they have operations for that!"  She doesn't remember saying it and I think it was said mostly out of the fear of the unknown, yet it penetrated in my being and this nagging sense of insecurity reared it's head.  It stuck with me.  This idea of what if.

Yet, I looked in the mirror and saw something very male.  I watched every talk show that was geared toward transsexualism and I was fascinated by what I saw and heard.  Could it be that I could do it too?
But what I began to witness was the manipulation of the body to conform to the minds thoughts.  Essentially, I saw men in women's clothing.  I saw the effects of what female hormones could do, yet, the movement, the bone structures, the work it would be to transform felt like a lie to me.  It wasn't negating the deep feelings inside or the turmoil, yet, it seemed to me that there was something else that played a factor.  Could it be the environment and behavioral structures of their early years played a factor?  I had to examine mine.

In doing this examination, I had to give up the notion that my environment had nothing to do with my struggle and disorded sense of gender.  I had to realize that how I was parented and my own interpretations of events were part of the factors of my development.  I had to give up and see God at work in and through my life as a man.  The complexities of the journey given over to Him so He can help navigate and direct my steps toward health in all areas of my life.

Giving up...ya, I've had to give up a lot.  I don't regret any of it, nor would I wish my life to be something else.  Truth be told, God is constantly revealing things in me that I need to give up...and in giving up, I receive so much more than what I could imagine.  He fills me with joy, peace, love and gives me good things to replace the stuff that is tarnished, old and broken down.  I won't say it's easy and it won't hurt.  On the contrary, it usually does and quite a bit actually.  But what comes out of the ashes of pain is often a beautiful aroma of praise.

So, what are you giving up?  What is God asking you to give over to Him?

Lost in Transgender?

This morning, I woke up with a deep sense that I desperately need God's wisdom.  I value education, workshops, books, but when it comes down to the crunch...especially in ministry, we need to rely heavily on wisdom that comes from our Eternal Creator Father God.


This post will come out of conversations that are now happening in regards to transgender issues.  Most people especially in the Church feel helplessly lost and alone with this issue,  I would dare say even within secular society and even in the LGBTQQ communities!  There has not been any long term case studies on transgender especially in the area of faith and so we can feel like we have no clue in regards to the roots of development or biological factors.


As I have been dialoguing about this, I then turn my gaze toward God.  I ask him the questions that I have.  "God, why are there no clear answers and if there are...can you show me?  Is this biological? Environmental?"

I sensed a bit of an answer the other day.  No neon light answer...but rather a deeper, quieter response back.  I sensed God say, "What if biology plays a role in this?  Did that mean I made a mistake?  Do you realize the state that everyone lives in?  Do you realize that you live in a fallen/broken world?  Could this extend to transgender issues?"  We concur that with homosexuality, biology does play a role, we would be ignorant if we didn't believe that we could be born with a sensitivity toward struggling with gender given our creative/sensitive/relational bent...and factoring in the environment, interactions with our family unit, peers, how our perceptions speak to us and other varying things...which can cause us to struggle with homosexuality.

Can this be said in regards to transgender issues?  I can look at my own life and see...yep, I was born with a more sensitive relational side to me which caused me to gravitate toward females (who relate and communicate more freely) and staying in this environment and considering interpretation and perceptions of my  parents, family, peers, began feeling like I was a mistake, born in the wrong body.  How come I couldn't be a girl like those I played with.  I clearly remember trying on my mothers wedding dress, wondering what it would be like to be a woman.  It excited me, caused me to begin to play with the notion that maybe I could one day.
Couple with the disassociation toward my male peers and my attraction to guys this propelled me to consume my thoughts with having  a sex change.  For years I thought that my issue was strictly homosexuality, but the more I remember of my past, and my behaviors, thoughts and actions, I realize that it is only by the grace of God that I did not have a gender reassignment surgery.  I know that even now, with much healing I still have the occasional thought of  "what would it be like?"  I realized in my healing that no matter what I decided, and if I went that route, it wouldn't give me long term happiness.  I may lead to happiness in the short term and it would fix the confusion on the outside but on the inside I'd still remain the same Kenny that I was born as.  My DNA says male...but what if tests showed that I had a hormone imbalance or missing this or that?  I'd still have been born male.  Many people can decide to switch this, live like that, but in reality we cannot change the blue print that God made when he designed and formatted us in our mother's womb.  Our body, our shape, our DNA points to a God who didn't screw up or make a mistake when he designed us.  He formed us, and said, this is good.  Living in a fallen, sinful world, we also know that we where born into sin.  There can be things that go wrong biologically, but does that mean we throw away our gender and decide to be something that will make it easier for us?  For me, if I think honestly about my life...I could say it would be easier to throw in the towel and be gay or transgendered...then I wouldn't have to deal with all the other deeper more meaningful stuff in my life.  It is tough sometimes, yet, life and learning to know the complexities of life and growth and maturity means that life is going to be hard sometimes...but we face this all with Christ walking alongside of us.  The Holy Spirit teaching and guiding us through our submission to the Lord.  Listening to the words of God affirming us in the created design he had for us when we were born male or female.

There is a lot written in the secular world which is creeping into the church in regards to transgender issues and development.  Much of it is affirming the reassignment surgery, that this is the answer to the confusion.  This issue is gaining momentum, gaining strength culturally.  I continue to think about this issue as it is very close to my heart.

I don't think we can discount that there are many factors that play a part in development of gender identity disorders.  As I see it, the factors are spiritual, biological, emotional and relational.  I believe that with all of us, the greatest gift God gave was giving us free will.  So that we aren't puppets, but rather we are free to decide and live how we want to live.  It's deciding how we live with that free will!  As we walk in relationship with Christ, as God's children, we mature, grow develop  and submit to His leadership in our lives.  Sometimes we don't like it right?  We fight with Him, we do things our way, we'd like to be our own boss sometimes, and yet we laid down that right when we submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  Like it or not, it has a cost.  I know that Gender matters.  It is very important to God and how we live it out is crucial to the world around us.  How we compliment each other as gender beings (male and females) is a great treasure, as it shows the world God's image in it's fullness.  Can we see, that if our gender was distorted or confused, it breaks down how we compliment each other.  It breaks down the image of God.


With all of this said, no one can "change" another persons mind on how they decide to live their life.  I'd love to be able to scream it out...that it really does matter, that our naturally born genders is very important, yet until God enlightens an individual and validates their birth gender nothing will change.  I know this to be true in my life.  Until I had an encounter with the Living God, I was blinded to the truth.  I didn't fully know the roots, the developmental or biological factors that played a part in my gender and sexuality, until I was enlightened by God.  It has cost me a lot, but I count it all loss for the gain of Christ and an eternal perspective of the decisions I make here and now have an effect later on.


So to each of you who may encounter someone who is deciding to follow a path that you totally don't understand, but you see heartache, brokenness because you've encountered God in a way that has changed your perspective, ask Him for Wisdom and Understanding that makes the wisdom of man look foolish.  Seek Him first.  Acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps.  Love those who have these deep struggles with gender and sexuality.  They need encounters with Jesus Christ!  Love like you've never loved before.  You don't need an answer to love others, you don't need cliches, you just need to be dependent of your Father who will give you all you need through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which dwells within you.

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.

 

 



New Shoes

New Shoes - previously published in Christian Courier

The Lord spoke a profound word to me this past month, through a very innocent act done by my 2 ½ year old.  As I was getting ready to go out for a meeting my daughter brought me a pair of shoes.  She proudly carried them to my feet and promptly put them down right in front of me and said, “Daddy’s shoes?”

I looked down and didn’t see my shoes but the shoes of my wife.  Red wedges, definitely not mine.  Phoebe waited there patiently for me to put them on.  I told her that these shoes would not fit Daddy and that they weren’t mine but that they were Mommy’s.  She didn’t move.  I showed her as I slipped my bare feet into them that my feet were too big.  My toes fit, but my heels hung a good 3 inches off the back.  She stood smiling as I showed her that these were not a good fit.  Sure, I could walk in them and get around in them but they were not mine. 

I took them off, put them in the closet and grabbed my shoes and put them on, showing her that they fit my feet perfectly and that these were in fact Daddy’s shoes.  Little did Phoebe or I know the significance of her innocent action or what God would again remind me of later that week?  I left it at that and went to my meeting not thinking twice about those shoes or Phoebe’s insistence that those red wedges were Daddy’s. 

That week in Church I was playing the piano for the worship team and as we were singing I got a picture of those red wedges and my feet in them.  I was taken back a bit and kept playing but then felt the Lord say to me that He has given me new shoes, ones that fit my feet perfectly and that in these shoes I could stand upright, strong, a man capable of being a husband, father, brother and son.  I was reminded of the time when I used to wear shoes like that.  When my masculinity was so broken and my identity marred due to circumstances in my childhood.  I had always secretly hoped that I could eventually become a woman.  I was reminded of the times I used to wear my mom’s shoes, pretending to be just like her.  I wished that I could wear shoes like that without shame or fear of being ridiculed and called names.  I had always felt odd in my skin, in my gender and even though at the time I was comfortable being gay, my secret longing was that I could eventually have gender reassignment surgery and that would be the final answer for this empty feeling inside. 

God met me in a profound way which stopped that process from ever happening.  My masculinity and sense of gender healed through submitting my life over to God and for him to set things in order so that I could stand secure in whom I was clearly designed to be.  I am grateful to God as I look at my life and all that He has done and blessed me with.  To know that without him my life could have looked very different than what it is today.

Those shoes reminded me of my past, but the greater reminder was God saying that he has given me new shoes, a new identity, one that he had intended from the beginning when he knit me together in my mother’s womb.  These new shoes fit and the other ones never did.  No matter what I could do those red wedges would always be shoes that would never quite match the DNA of my feet.  I felt like God was speaking this as a reminder to me but also to all of us.  I walked many years in the wrong shoes, even though God had something better for me, but he has the same gift for all of us.  He calls each one of us to take off the shoes that don’t fit and allow Him to fit us with those perfect fitting shoes.  New shoes, ready for us to walk in the fullness of who we were created to be all along.  Are you ready to take off your shoes?  Because God, your Father who knew you before anyone else did is ready to fit you with ones that fit you perfectly.

Authenticity in the journey

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that writing comments on other people's blogs and maybe even entering into dialogue with them via the stream of online communication, apart from video calls, could possibly be deemed useless. I think it can work, but you really need to be careful with clarification and asking questions, to further dialogue and get a better understanding of what is being said. Terminology and wording is subjective...and can be misconstrued.

So much is being written about sexual identity...authenticity and some of it is very insensitive. I am to some degree quite frankly saddened by some of the misconceptions that are out there, and things that are being written regarding some of the responses and attitudes.

I am pretty authentic in my faith and my journey of who I am as a sexual male. I have great friends who I LOVE, who understand me, accept me and validate who I am. But my ultimate validation, love and acceptance comes from God...and not others. It is God who affirms me and calls me out of the wilderness and it was God who called me out of my captivity. For me, that captivity was the deception that being gay (and the use of that descriptive word was just that...a way I described myself, just as I would the color of my eyes, my height, my likes, dislikes, to me it was unchangeable)was okay. I had bought into the belief that I just needed to accept the fact that God made me gay...created me that way and I needed to get past the guilt and shame I felt as a christian.

For me...reconciling the two never worked. I chose being gay. That didn't mean I never tried. I did. I tried affirming congregations. I tried groups, but to me, there was something missing. I never felt a depth or an authenticity in those gatherings and it just felt like a political, or social justice meeting. Every time we met, we addressed the issues surrounding something about being lgbt defined as it pertained to policies...politics...and social justice meetings etc. I realized that in a lot of ways, I went from one extreme to another. It was disheartening and disenchanting. So, I privately prayed...but mostly, just lived life. I went to work, paid my taxes, lived with my partner, traveled, and pretty much did what other couples did.

but...having not addressed some key issues in my life, reconciling faithfulness wasn't in my reality but neither was that for a lot of my friends...and I will say that was true for my straight friends and my lgbt friends.
I was mostly happy. I had a good life.

So in the midst of all of this...why...if God so loved me as a gay man...why would he audibly call me out of that description and into something different? It doesn't make sense.
Some people would justify that...oh...then you weren't gay to begin with...or you didn't hear God? Or for you...being gay wasn't your true orientation.
The same people would justify saying that because I still struggle with same sex attraction...that I am lying and that I am not being authentic, that I am depressed, that I don't know who I am and in so, can't authentically minister to others. That my true orientation is gay...and I should label myself as gay and that I am now in a mixed orientation marriage.
Sounds like a lot of critique...right?

We need to be honest as to where we are at...reality! What is our reality? We need to be authentic in this...we also need to be authentic in the fact that we no longer live...Jesus Christ now lives in us. This doesn't mean we "lose ourselves" or our sense of "being", it actually is a "coming into the fullness of who we are as a gift to those around us". It is truly knowing ourselves and the complexities of understanding who we are...as God's created ones. He designed and predestined us all...and desires each of us to come to the knowledge of just how much HE loves us. That is really exciting if you ask me. It isn't a doom and gloom message of give this up...take away that, but in reality, recognizing all the stuff in my life matters, but not so much as to follow Christ. He asks us to come "follow him" to give up much, but not to lose who we are...HIS!

My reality is that I still face same sex attraction from time to time. It isn't as intense. I have learned a lot about ssa and it isn't this huge defining thing in my life. I don't condemn those whose journey is different than mine, or how it looks for them, but for me, I have experienced Jesus healing many factors surrounding ssa.

I also realize that this isn't something that defines me and that doesn't make me non authentic. I am honest with it and with others...but I am much more than this and I have a whole pile of stuff that God is dealing with in me...things that he wants to touch and heal and restore. I have also come to realize that our sexuality, is very important to God. The things God created is important and we have a thief that comes to kill and destroy and my personal belief is that this thief comes to distort and deceive and that is part of living in a sinful and fallen world.

Today...I kinda feel like venting. To just get things out of my head. It's late though and I have a full day tomorrow.

Pray for us, as we continue to seek God and His heart for his children.

Gender and Sexuality...is it really that important?

I have had several emails from those who read my last column “Born this way? CC August 22, 2011), and I want to thank all my readers for taking the time to consider the words that I put together. This column dealt with social issues, focusing primarily on same gender attraction and the church.

To some, this issue may be something we “just don’t talk about,” while to others there may be an attitude of “what’s the big deal, it really isn’t much different than someone dealing with heterosexual lust issues.” I believe that our gender and sexual identities are very important not just for us, but to God and how he designed us. Culturally speaking, we live in a hostile climate. My mom, who has spoken along side my wife and I at various settings, states that there is a “climate change” that is happening and she’s not talking about the environment. Rather, she’s talking about a change in how the church and society views gender and identity. Some church communities are slowly becoming an affirming place for those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered, and by doing so are encouraging these people to continue walking in their broken state rather than offering the hope of restoration through Jesus Christ.

Gender and sexual identities are important. I believe that God formed us and made us male and female, and that he created us to be this way for a reason. Specifically, he did this so that we could bear his image to the world around us as we walk in whole and holy relationships with the opposite sex. What we are seeing is a distortion of gender, a confusion regarding sexual identity and an embrace of a fallen, broken state. The enemy of God loves this. The enemy of God (Satan, Devil or whatever name you call him), wants to wipe God off the face of the earth. He will do whatever he can to accomplish this. This is a bold claim, but I believe that one of the last frontiers that the enemy has is our gender and our sexuality. Abortion has been going on for years, killing innocent babies. Babies that God knew, created and had plans for. The enemy continues to have his hand in the whole area of abortion, but that isn’t enough. If he can distort the image of God in any way, then he has done his job.

Someone who read my last column asked me “Really, what is so different about same gender strugglers?” For myself, I came to the place of realizing that my unwanted same sex attraction was no different than a heterosexual man dealing with lust (other than
the object of our lust). The root issues for me were very similar. I struggled with shame, insecurity, low self esteem, control and anger. When these core issues are triggered it caused me to seek comfort in the arms of another man. Often when these core issues are triggered for a heterosexual man dealing with sexual addiction, it causes them to seek comfort in the arms of a woman.

It’s important to realize though that those who struggle with unwanted same sex attraction come from varied background and experiences, and that the issue is very complex. It isn’t just a pat answer that will help the struggler. The person who struggles has often spent years in silence, often fearing a negative response from those in their community, specifically within the body of Christ. How we respond and how we love is very important to those who struggle with gender and sexual identity issues. If what I believe is true regarding the enemy destroying God’s image by distorting gender, then the body of Christ needs to rise to be a different voice, a voice of hope and restoration. It needs to rise to it’s place as a community of grace and truth. Affirming and bringing people into the healing presence of Jesus Christ is crucial. Loving people and being truthful about our own broken places will hopefully allow others to realize that the body of Christ is a safe place to seek out the restoration of God’s intended purpose for our gender and sexual identities. This is a huge issue we are facing. One that won’t “just go away,” but is at the very heart of a God whose image depends on how we walk out our gender and sexuality.

Thoughts on Lady Gaga's Guest Editor Stint for the Metro

Let your identity be your idol…oh I mean religion.

Lady Gaga’s image appeared front and center on the cover of the Metro news in Winnipeg. Born This Way the caption printed under the image of Stefani (real name) a cross hanging from a dog collar around her neck, dressed in a two piece black number with rhinestones hanging from her breasts. Flashbacks to Madonna come to play in my mind as I look at her image. Who is Lady Gaga? In her one hour interview with Michael Freidson she gives snippets of the reality in her life…or is it fantasy. In regards to her Born This Way album, she states, “The most paramount theme on the record for me struggling to understand how I can exist as myself, as someone who lives halfway between fantasy and reality all the time.” This could well paint a good picture of the now 25 year old who continues to paint a very peculiar picture of herself in media and to her “little monsters…her fans”. She wants to change the world.

Funny thing is, the world has bought into another entertainer who by rights saw a void in the whole area of sensationalism and has used that to gain momentum and this is not uncommon nor is it new. Each generation needs or longs for a new sensationalist who grabs there attention and does things that bend and twist the norm, to validate and affirm things within them.

I believe we are all born with an innate void that needs to be filled. If we think theologically, we are all born into sin. We have a predisposition to be rebellious in nature and live to please ourselves rather than submit ourselves and our human nature to our creator God. As Gaga’s interview goes on, she states that she was “taught her whole life about Judas and Jesus and Mary Magdalene.” She goes on to say that Mary Magdalene fascinates her, as she believes that Mary is both “wholly human and wholly divine”. She then asks herself, “how can I be fully magical and fully human?”

I believe we are to come to the place of understanding how we are “Born This Way”, not in the ways we define ourselves, nor allow others to define us, but to recognize the area within us that longs for acceptance, affirmation, love, which in it’s fullness will not be filled until we meet our saviour Jesus Christ and our Creator God. We will in our humanness grapple with identity, self worth, wholeness, acceptance, love and the list could go on, while we are here on the earth.

Gaga goes on to repeat herself over and over again, that her passion is social justice and music. She says she probably should go to therapy and goes on to say that she is in tune with herself. That at the end of the day she has to look in the mirror and be proud of everything she stands for. She says she doesn’t party very much, nor is she seen falling out of nightclubs…yet, she is still a sensationalist. Would Lady Gaga be who she is, if she doesn’t wear a meat dress, nor dress provocatively in an already sex crazed society? In a recent show on TV, she was described as a positive role model for young girls. I had to laugh a bit at that, but took serious note as to that statement. Would I want my daughter to look at her as a role model, dressed the way she does? Would I want my daughter to dress like that? Would I want my son to come home with a woman dressed like that?

I don’t want image to be the only impression, yet it plays a part in the image and role that she plays in our culture. Lady Gaga, doesn’t work with men who are dealing with sex addiction, yet she is a role model for sex addiction. She says social justice is very important to her, yet as a role model what negative roles does she play? Our society of young people are buying into her sensationalistic mentality and running with it.

If Lady Gaga would clear away the outfits, the sexualized images and provocative statements, the makeup (essentially, everything that has imprinted her as Mother Monster) and just sang and worked on social justice issues could she do it? Could she see a bigger picture of what and who she is in the world around her, rather than the Monster image portrayed by her? My heart breaks for her, as I see a young woman desperate for attention, longing to know what real love truly is, even if she can’t see it. As much as she is a sensationalist and a poor role model, my prayer is that she knows the incomparable love of her heavenly Father who calls her to something more, something greater than what she can imagine.

The May 17th issue of Winnipeg’s Metro was focused on the now “Born This Way” LGBTQ campaign. Throughout the paper well known gay and lesbian media representatives answered the question, “What advice would you give your 15-year old self, knowing now what you didn’t know then.”

What surprised me as to the whole theme of the paper was the idea of wanting humanity to find togetherness and in Lady Gaga’s words “We are all different and it is that which makes us the same.”

Is my existence which is different than the cultural expectation of me (someone who was once gay identified, who would still say I struggle with same gender attraction to some degree) acceptable and welcomed, understood and embraced?

Is the message welcomed that if you are in conflict with your same sex attraction, specifically in regards to your faith, that you can seek out wholeness, seek out healing, and an understanding to why you may feel this way, rather than taking on the immediate labels LGBTQ or “Born This Way”? Is that immediately deemed abusive, repressive, homophobic if you decide to uncover why you think or feel this way and decide to find another way to define yourself.

Having struggled with my sense of gender identity for years before I came out at age 30 and then at age 38 decided to look at the root causes of my gender distortion and confusion after an encounter with my creator God, I came to realize that I am so much more than “the struggle” and I see a bigger picture of who I am and why I was created as a gendered being. I see my worth and my identity wrapped up in my understanding of who I am as a son of God. Fully loved, fully embraced and fully free to be the man God had from the beginning desired me to be. I walk upright and fully present to my weakness, my faults and vulnerabilities. My struggle is not a liability, nor does it hinder me to fully love myself, my wife or my daughter…and ultimately those around me.

My message to my 15 year old self if I had been asked the question:

Life gets better. It really does. You may not see it now, nor understand fully because of what you are struggling with and even the ability to understand it fully may not happen for a while, but know that the God who created all things, who knew you before your parents even did, has a plan and a purpose for your life. He didn’t create you gay, nor is He punishing you or causing this internal struggle with your gender. He does though have a bigger plan for your life, one that will BLOW you away. Learn to trust Him. Find some safe people to talk with, ones who will walk with you and listen. They don’t need to have all the answers, but they should walk you toward Christ. Be transparent. Be real. Don’t hide your struggle or your questions, but talk about it. There is no shame in struggling, there is no shame in who you are, unique, wonderful, amazingly talented, handsome, confident, a beautiful gift to those around you. You don’t need to try to be like other men around you, the ones you think you should be like, rather be you. Be who God made you with all the musical talent, creativity that comes from Him.

You are more than your struggle and you are way more than what the world would label you as. Don’t seek out idols, don’t let heterosexuality be your idol, don’t let homosexuality be your idol, don’t let the struggle be your idol. Worship the Lord. Worship Him with abandon. He longs for you to come and bring everything to Him.

He will make the journey ahead full of joy…but remember as you seek out holiness, that does not necessitate happiness (happiness is different than joy). Holiness comes with a cost, it is sacrificing your life, laying it down at the foot of the cross daily. That is hard. It is a sifting and a refining and the LORD JESUS CHRIST who made the ultimate sacrifice is right there with you. HE won’t give you more than you can bare.

Remember to love yourself, for in doing so, you can love others well. Be brave, be courageous and be bold in your faith and your transparency. I love ya!