"Extra! Extra!" Shhhh!
“Ex-Crack User Now Gets Rush From Helping Others In Need”. A few years ago, that was headline I clipped from a local newspaper. I seldom read the newspaper, but the article’s title stuck in my brain. When someone breaks free from drug or alcohol addiction, there is cause for celebration. There is even greater joy when that same person devotes their life to rescuing others caught in addiction. I kept the article as a reminder of the rescue mission God has placed before me. I am an Ex-Gay man who gets a rush from helping others leave their LGBT lives behind. There is no chance of that headline making it to print. In today’s world the headline might read:
“Ex-Gay People; Don’t Exist” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
“Gay People Can’t Change” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“Ex-Gays Were Most Likely Never Gay At All”. (John 9:18)
These lies have been spoken over me by friends and enemies alike. Each one, a finely crafted, satanic weapon, discrediting the fact that God encouraged me to leave my gay life and then Jesus helped. The scripture proceeding our devilish headlines helps me discern the truth. Jesus used scripture to rebuke satan in the wilderness; I follow His example.
The secular world may be on the attack, but the modern-day church does damage by remaining silent. It is discouraging when a pastor acknowledges every other ministry from the pulpit, but avoids any mention of Ex-LGBT ministry. The work we do is vital. Some pastors applaud us behind the scenes, but more often than not, it is a lonely life for us in the church.
My ministry is an extension of a scriptural calling that God has placed on my life. Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…”. I love hearing the testimonies of sexual healing and redemption and seeing hard, angry faces soften in response to the Holy Spirit.
Here are some honest questions Christian brothers and sisters.
What if God suddenly answered our prayers concerning the gay community?
What if when the church doors opened, thousands of LGBT men and women showed up ready to hear the good news of the gospel? How would you respond? With rejoicing or condescension? With love or indifference? More importantly, “Would you be ready?” The simple answer to that question is ‘No’.
Do we even understand what we are praying concerning the LGBT community? Are we praying for them to turn from their “wicked” ways or praying that they would encounter the transforming love of Jesus? Until the church deals honestly and openly with our own hurt and pain, we will never be equipped properly to deal with the hurt and pain of the gay community. When Christians trade “smiling faces” for “confessional hearts” revival will begin. We are often blinded to the hurt and pain of the LGBT community, by our judgement of their actions. Do we as a Christian community understand that the LGBT community is hurting? Do we care?
I can look back now and realize that as a gay man, satan offered me substitutions for real love. My early life experiences and the broken people around me were bad examples of real love. So much so that I had trouble distinguishing real love from the fake stuff. Scripture says that if a person is hungry, then even bad food tastes delicious. The same goes for love. I was so starved for someone to love and validate me, that I fell for the first person that stroked my hair, looked me in the eyes and listened. By the age of 18, I was gorging on relational garbage and treating it like a delicacy. The LGBT community is made of up of individuals just like me. They are your sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and on occasion, your parents. Each of them contains a soul, precious to God.
The full acronym of LGBT is LGBTQQIP2SAA. You won’t find an E in there for Ex-gay. Apparently universal inclusivity and tolerance has limits. For a second, though, let’s focus on the second ‘A’. It stands for Allies. “Allies are individuals who recognize that community thrives best with loving supporters.”* Wow! I got excited when I read that. How amazing would ministry to the LGBT community be if ministries like Big Fish had Christians in the church who weren’t afraid to stand alongside us as Allies. Christians who realize that ministry thrives best with loving supporters.
Until the headlines speak the truth, God calls us to share the good news. Whether through a march on Washington D.C., a simple conversation in Starbucks or a long distance call across the waves. The truth of the gospel will not be silenced. And neither should we.
*Definition of Allies found on the Website, Social Justice for All.
Freedom March: A True Story
In May 2018, a small group of 40 men and women gathered in Washington D.C. to publicly share their testimonies of Jesus Christ and how He set them free from the bondage of their LGBT lives. This would be the first of many gatherings called Freedom Marches. Near the base of the Washington monument, in the smallest, most rundown amphitheater, they gathered. They raised their hands in worship and their voices in song to proclaim Jesus Christ, first and forever. For three hours, people who had been set free from all manner of sexual sin shared their stories. There were even some folks who had never been LGBT that shared their support for the movement. One by one, they stepped up to the mic and testified to the Bigness of God from the tiny stage. They detailed the goodness of God to walk alongside them as they left their lives of sin behind and were ushered into a new season filled with grace, mercy and restoration. Can you hear them? Can you hear the voices over the decades shouting from the mountaintops that Jesus is a God of restoration? Strewn about amongst the believers were some other nefarious characters: a witch burning incense and casting her curses, an undercover, lesbian reporter gathering intel for what was sure to be a story blasting the event as hate speech or homophobic, and two misguided teenagers who had taken a wrong turn and mistakenly wandered through the amphitheater. They paused just long enough to raise their hands in mock worship, mimicking the participants, before they shuffled out of the crowd. As the last words of testimony fell from the speaker’s lip, a printed banner was unfurled and held aloft. The group gathered at the entrance of the venue. It wasn’t a simple Freedom March that was about to begin. A movement was beginning. A few of the founders of the Freedom March formed a line behind the banner; each of them gripping their section and holding it steady, symbolizing a declaration to the world that the Freedom Jesus Christ had given us from our LGBT lives was about to be proclaimed. The March began. We began to sing. We had taken only a few steps when Marine One, the presidential helicopter flew over-head carrying our President. Tears filled my eyes. It was a surreal moment of stepping up and stepping out and being real. We were making history. We marched as a group towards the White House, worshipping God with a new sense of purpose. Along the path, I noticed two women sitting on a parch bench. One of the ladies took a moment to read our banner. Then silently she raised her hand, turned her wrist and gave our group and our mission a thumbs down in protest. No words were exchanged. In that moment both expressed their opinions in a civil manner and then life as we know it resumed. That first Freedom March was a moment of great triumph for every participant. Freedom was our testimony of Jesus. God had been exalted and satan was put in His place one more time. A few months later, a second Freedom March would convene in Los Angeles. Our numbers since Washington would grow to over 200. Certainly this was not the birthplace of freedom, but for the lost, broken and weary members of our community, it signaled the rebirth of hope.
Lies We Believe (Conference Notes)
Lies teaching from the Renew Conference in Coolangatta, Australia
Satan’s Resumé
Voted Most beautiful of all Angels, in the first Angel Beauty Contest circa 20,000 BC.
AKA Angel of Light. Accuser of the Brethren, Beelzabub, Devil, The Dragon, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Prince of the power of the air, god of this world, roaring lion, serpent.
Graduated Top of his Creation.
Over confident.
Prefers to work alone, doesn’t work well with Management.
Sponsored first ever “office mutiny”.
Deceived First Woman and Man.
Member and founder of the Hoofs and Horns Club.
Created a string of unwed mothers.
Co sired the first real life versions of the X-men.
Brought financial ruin and relational chaos to God’s most devout human.
Tempted Jesus. Tortured Jesus.
Wanted for suspicion of murder in the death of Jesus.
Most likely responsible for the creation of mosquitoes and cats.
We all have a common enemy out there.
Does his best work in shades of lies and distraction.
John 8:44 “[satan]He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15 “…Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”
In case you didn’t know it folks, Satan is fo real.
He works like a mercenary. When a mercenary can’t get to You physically, then they go after the ones you love. Satan hates everything about God, but he can't physically harm God, so you are the next best target. He tries to hurt God by attacking His loved ones and disrupting God’s plan for each one of us.
What he was allowed to do to Job.
At the beginning of the story we see Satan has returned from walking to and fro on the earth
My friend Christy would call it meddling.
He stays around long enough to cause trouble, then he jets.
We see the story conclude with God being glorified, Job being restored and satan has left most likely to develop another scheme.
He doesn’t care how many times he fails,
he always comes back to try again.
In that respect, we need to be a little more like satan;
Relentless; when it comes to not backing down.
Satan separates family, attack our identity and confidence, amplifies our fears, leads people astray, distracts them, leads their beliefs to be mingled with just the right amount of half-truths. He doesn’t’ play well with others. His ultimate goal is to kill us.
John 10:10 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
The devil wouldn’t have a hoof to stand on if we would stop buying into the lies we believe and were convinced of our identity in Jesus Christ.
If we didn’t believe the lies, satan would be powerless against us.
But we do believe. Satan says a single word and we build a kingdom.
Let compliments land. If you don’t let compliments land, then all you are left to build an identity with is broken pieces.
Our brokenness acts as a catalyst between the lies we believe and satanic temptation.
The reaction is an emotional upheaval that causes us to react, not respond.
Why do we believe the lies
1) Guilt
2) Shame
3) Satan says a word and we build a kingdom
4) Bits of truth mixed in with deception (Dog poop cookies)
5) Feelings of less than, inferiority
6) Everyone else seems to be getting it right
Jesus knew who He was at an early age
Luke 2:49 “And He said to them, ‘Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?’ “
He knew that His life would be one of sacrifice dedicated to carrying out the will of the Father. He trusted God.
If you don’t trust that God is good, it’s easier for satan to convince you that
God is disinterested
or holding back,
or that His will is not is not the best option.
Jesus was talking to a father whose child had a mute spirit and it caused him to hurt himself.
Mark 9:23-24 “Jesus said to him, ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’”
Sometimes our beliefs are faulty or downright wrong.
We believe that God can heal us, but there is a disconnect between “God can” and “God will” for me
I adopted a cause and effect style relationship with God. If I’m bad, God is mad and until I do something good to get back in His graces, I have to sit condemned. I knew just enough scripture to keep myself bound to legalism.
I had to serve penance to show God that I was truly sorry for my sin.
To me, God wasn’t relational, He was a cold, demanding dictator.
The Truth
Romans 5:8 but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us.
It doesn’t surprise God when Christians fall prey to sin, but it often surprises us, considering how we let sin affect our moods.
We hold ourselves to higher expectations than God holds us to. It isn’t His heart that we continue to let sin knock us down, keep us bound and distract from being in relationship with Him.
Cut to the wilderness
Satan tried tempting Jesus in the wilderness.
Jesus used the word of God as a weapon against satan.
Satan goes away only to plot his return.
Satan tries tempting you and I
Sometimes we resist. Sometimes we bring cigars and champagne.
But when it comes to Satan, we must follow the example Jesus sat for us.
To combat satan we must use scripture as Jesus did; as a weapon of truth against the lies of the enemy.
Exposing The Lies Exercise
I came up with this exercise, because I went through a few inner healing conferences where we would touch on a few of the lies you believed. It was a great first step, but would happen if we go deeper and have full disclosure.
I wanted to help people break free from the bondage of the enemy.
God has used it for so much more.
With the singular focus of exposing the lies we believe, I watched as people not only shared the lies they believe, but they shared their testimonies and intimate details of their life
In the first session with a gentleman who was in his 60’s, I saw a God set him free from lies that had bound him up for the better part of 40 years. (Steve and his two handicapped brothers)
When it comes to exposing the lies the enemy is using against me, I use a simple, writing exercise for breaking down strongholds.
“Exchange My Lie for God’s Truth”
(Wash, Rinse, Repeat)
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the
knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
Christ.” - 2 Corinthians 10:5
Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart! They also do no iniquity; they walk in His ways.
5 Oh that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! Then I would not be ashamed, when I look into all your commandments.
6 I will praise You with uprightness of heart, when I learn your righteous judgments.
9 How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I have sought You; oh, let me not wander from your commandments!
11 Your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You.
Those that walk in the spirit will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Step One
Identify the lies you have believed. Take them captive. Get them out of your head. Write them down on paper. (In a world where you feel you have no control, this is an action step.)
Get yourself a cool journal. An intricate, leather bound one reminiscent of Narnia or Lord of the Rings, or something pink. It just needs to be something that you are excited to write in. One that you are going to keep for a while. Don’t use post-its or scrap paper. Invest in the healing process.
Step Two
Lies come in three different flavors.
1) God
2) Ourselves
3) satan
Start with God. Then work your way down the list. The health of your other relationships is directly related to a healthy relationship with God.
God told me to tell one of the guys I was mentoring that He (God) is a personal and interactive. I think there is a good portion of us who see God as distant and intangible.
You may find that lies on different lists sound similar,
often times the different perspectives of the same lie will form a 3 D picture of the lies/beliefs that are shaping your life.
Write out ALL the lies you have believed about God. Don’t hold back. God can take your honesty. In fact, He prefers it. He already knows the lies you’ve believed about Him. Our goal is to bring the guilty parties to justice. Don’t be surprised or shocked by what comes to mind. I honestly believe that is the leading of the Holy Spirit. Up until this point, God has been the only one willing to do anything about the lies you have believed. Now you are taking action and joining the recovery effort.
Some people may be apprehensive about speaking the lies out, fearing that speaking them will give them power in their lives. But believing that satan is more powerful than God and that somehow in your confession He can lock you it in as your fate, is also one more lie perpetuated by the enemy. It is honest confession, not a declaration over your life. There is a difference between saying “I was born gay” and “I believed the lie that I was born gay.” The bible says if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”
God is always speaking. The problem is that we are not always listening and sometimes our receptors are blocked. This exercise also help unblock our receptors. Parents, this is for you, too. For a moment in time, we are asking you to put yourself on the operating table.
This moment, this time is about you and your relationship with the Father.
He cares for you. Before you were a parent, You are His child.
What I find is that when we have been solely focused on one lie/belief, when you write it down, take it captive and identify it, you move it aside and others rise up from the depths.
For example: God gave me dreams about anger and rage for my parents. (Riding a bike)
You are bringing the light of God into the dark parts of your heart where the lies are hiding. Getting the lies on paper, is like a doctor performing invasive surgery to remove a tumor.
Bringing the lies out, prevents our imagination fostering their exponential growth, wreaking havoc on our thought life.
Sometimes one lie, is a part of a bigger network of beliefs that affect other aspects of our lives.
Step Three
This step is going to take a little time and effort, but it doesn’t have to be tedious if you are surrendered to the idea that Rome was not built in a day. Once the lies are written out in each category, it’s time to ask the Lord to share the truth of His word over the lies.
Google is your best friend for this step in the process. If you have been in and around church for any amount of time, scripture will have been deposited over the years. There will be scripture that will flood back in. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring scripture back to your remembrance. In this way, much like Jesus, we are combatting the lies of the enemy with the truth of God’s word.
God is not willing that any man should perish.
Step Four
We must surrender our right to live according to that lie/belief. Breaking allegiance and alliance with the enemy and giving territory that was deeded to satan, back to God. We need to serve satan an eviction notice. He in our lives messing up God’s plan and stealing our joy.
(Momma and the pigs getting the house vs. rebuking satan)
1) If you don’t believe that God answers prayer, you won’t pray.
2) If you believe that God is angry, you will approach Him differently than if you saw Him as a loving Father.
3) God hasn’t brought your child out of the gay life
a) maybe gay is okay (The Asian mom at the last Exodus conference)
b) You think that you care more than God does
c) What else?
We can make an idol of leaving the gay life behind. And neglect the fact that our child needs their own life changing encounter with Jesus, before any amount of change will come. I encounter parents that have a dusty bible sitting on the shelf and they wonder why their child isn’t interested in pursuing a relationship with God.
Are you pushing a gospel on your child that you aren’t convinced of yourself?
Giant Redwood vs. A Weed
It is a monumental task to cut down and dig out the roots of a giant redwood. The root system is enormous and well developed. The trunk and branches are vast. The longer it is allowed to grow, the more locked in it becomes.
A weed that springs up overnight is easily gotten rid of if we do so in a timely manner. You can often pull it up with one good tug. The trouble with weeds is that when we see them as insignificant, we allow them to grow. A weed allowed to grow, propagates rapidly, then we before we know it, our entire field is covered in weeds.
Just like those weeds, the little lies I believed after being called Fag, Queer and Sissy in the 7thgrade, became beliefs that propagated and grew. They amplified other lies that became beliefs when my mom would emasculate me, and an entire weed garden sprang up. Giving rise later on to an old growth forest of lies that sent me straight into the arms of the gay community.
My dad and the lies I believed about him. (He never loved me. He never taught me to ride a bike.)
The word says that we shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.
But what if we don’t want to know the truth, because it disrupts and disturbs the status quo.
My introduction to the idea that I was believing lies, began in the village of Low Self Esteemville.
I was walking along, minding my own business and God posed the question to me, “Are your friends’ liars? No. Am I liar? No, of course not God. Well, if your friends aren’t liars and I am not a liar then why don’t you believe the good things we believe about you? Why do you think you are the worst person on the planet, unworthy of love and deserving of a mediocre life?
Why bother?
1) Develop a better understanding of the word
2) Learn the tactics of the enemy
3) See that some lies are intertwined with others in a satanic deadlock
3) Begin to build your trust in God
4) You will learn to hear God’s voice wherever He is speaking
5) Cut ties with the enemy and renounce any agreements you have made with him
6) A new belief system based in truth is like working out a muscle.
7) When satan comes in with a lie, you combat it with truth
8) The better you get at exposing the lies, the less you will let them set up shop in your mind
9) When you begin to walk in freedom, you can help others do the same
Disadvantages
1) Exposing the lies can be tough
2) There are little lies and big lies we have believed
a) Little lies, no sweat. We feel silly that we believed them, but we aren’t about to let them stand in the way of our relationship with God
b) Big ones, you may resist turning your back on a lie that has felt like an old friend: familiar, comfortable, right, rationalized, “everyone does that”.
This rationalization of sin is one of the reasons for the birth of gay Christianity. People trusted their feelings and allowed that to breed pride and entitlement and a sense of unfairness and instead of following God’s design for their sexuality, they decided to augment and change His word to support their sinful life.
The bigger the lie and the longer we have lived with it, the harder it will become to surrender to God in that area and submit the lie to truth. Tougher still when we don’t know the truth.
c) If you or your sinful life has been your source of stability, you are going to feel lonely, broken and exposed. That is, until you exchange your “truth” for the Truth of God’s word.
We are the worst at hearing and receiving good stuff about ourselves, but we are the first that take it for granted that what we do to lift others up should be taken at face value and allowed to land.
Stop letting your big ole But get in the way. Instead, practicing doing unto others as you would have them do to you. They let your compliments land, you need to as well. We need to say Thank you and not Thank you, but…. When you allow the truth to land, you allow God to build something grand.
One of the lies that God exposed in me was based in the truth of my need.
I was convinced that I wanted to be in a relationship with a big strong man who would hold me, hug me and love me. I let that thought rumble around in my head for years. Using it as masturbation fantasy material. But when I became a Christian and it was still there, I didn’t understand. Was I still gay? Why had this feeling not gone away. So I began to pray and surrender my desire to God. Because maybe just maybe there was something in that desire that was healthy.
Life bursts forth
Someone approached me awhile back to write an article for them. My only instruction was, “write something beautiful.” Instantly, fireworks erupted in my head. As a writer, I can write “beautiful” in my sleep. Then Monday happened. Tuesday wasn’t much better. Wednesday was the calm before the storm. On Thursday, an old, shoulder injury rushed back onto the scene with a vengeance, stealing away any confidence I had to write anything, beautiful or otherwise. Friday found me nursing my pain with Netflix from the couch, as satan played target practice with my sanity. How could I write something beautiful when ugly had sprouted up in the garden of my soul? (Told you I was a writer.) In those moments, I needed to rest in God’s presence. In times past, I would have reacted instantly and badly. I would have gotten mad at God for not protecting me, blamed Him for my misfortune and dipped into the medicine cabinet of my past for an emotional painkiller or two.
A few days later, I saw what God, not myself, was authoring. It was indeed something beautiful. As I told a friend how difficult it is to think “beautiful” when you’re surrounded by so much ugly, it hit me. Jesus on the cross. What a horrendously ugly, yet purposeful time. Before Jesus, the cross wasn’t a symbol of beauty. It was a torture device. Jesus pressed through every, horrific, pain filled moment, because of His love for us. It was His love and willingness to endure hardship and trials that transformed a thing of torture into a symbol of beauty. I asked myself. If I am living surrendered to Jesus, am I living as He lived? What do I do when satan comes knocking at the door? Where do hardship and struggle take my mind? Do I brace and endure, reminding myself of the long term good? Do I succumb to the pressure and medicate the short-term pain?
I often encourage those trying to navigate the waters of Christianity and the bible, to read the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the literary “3-D printer” of the Jesus Christ’s life. They represent four accounts of Jesus that, verse by verse, construct a composite image of Jesus Christ in our minds. Jesus knew what was expected of Him during His time on earth. He was here to do the will of the Father, not the will of the people. I think how often that fear and neediness leads me to get these confused. Jesus knew who He was. He knew that times of rest and time with Father God were necessary, not negotiable. When we follow Jesus’ example and take time to rest, understand our calling and connect with God, the seeds of beauty break through the soil of our dark, human hearts. Life bursts forth. Matthew 15:19-20 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person…”
Though ugliness may swirl around us, Jesus speaks directly to our hearts, “Peace, Be still.”
God revealed something in my talks, screaming fits and silent moments with Him. John 3:30 says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” At different times in my life this verse either infuriates me or enlightens me with the reminder that I can, once again, resign as the CEO of my life. The mature Christian in me understands it fully. The fragmented, little boy who struggled in silence with his sexuality, grew up in a restrictive church and was raised by a bipolar mom and a distant dad, is consistently battles with this verse. That little boy endured 12 years of anguish and pain, waiting for his time to shine. He wasn’t giving up control that easy.
Yet, a loving God had the patience to endure my elective, ‘ugly’ years. To wait for my humbled ‘Yes’ after years of angry ‘Nos’. His Grace affords us some personal moments of ugliness as Jesus searches to restore beauty and healing to the wounds in our broken hearts.
God posed the question to me one day, “What if this entire thing, your life, was simpler than you’ve made it? What if it was all about the relationship between Me and you? What if your talents, abilities, desires and ministry goals were all just distractions? What if it truly was about loving Me with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?” This conversation when on for a few minutes before I realized what He was digging around. With each question He posed, I felt a peace, clarity and a closeness to Him return to my heart and mind. For weeks, those feelings had been shrouded by pain and distraction. Suddenly, I felt the clouds in my mind roll back and His guiding light break through.
When God finished, I saw the point He was trying to make. God wants our being, not our doing. He wants to be involved in every aspect of our lives. If you have trouble hearing from God as I did, start with His word. One truth I have learned over my short, 20 years as a Christian is simply this. God is always speaking, somewhere. Never stop searching for His voice.
Wake Up & Smell the Surrender
5 hours into battling the night for even a shred of REM, I partially surrendered to the morning at 7:35 a.m. I could have tried to fight, but something divine was brewing. The Great Creator of the universe was talking. Like a giddy school girl with a juicy bit of gossip, He wasn’t giving up easily. I relented, picked up my smart phone and began a priceless, fuzzy-eyed dictation, birthing wisdom and auto-correct gems like “jasspy” and “flugle’. Staving off blurry vision, I gave my eyes a vigorous rub, simultaneously screaming, ‘I’M UP! I’M UP!’. Full on, white flag surrender was in full effect at 8:05 a.m. I moved like Mario ascending the Donkey Kong tower, dipping and dodging equal parts love and rebuke. I asked God, “I thought you loved me?”. I imagined His face smiling back at me, nodding approval, but still prepping to throw another “barrel”.
I felt like God saying, “You keep asking yourself, ‘Why am I the way that I am?’ That’s the wrong question. You know the right answer, but you’re asking the wrong question.” Many of my issues, dating back to age zero, are the result of behavioral responses to environmental stimuli. “Why do I do what I do?” That's the right question. This refers to my actions, rather than my identity. I am responsible for my behavior. When it comes to my sin, Jesus shoulders the cost as I surrender my life to Him. If I let Jesus master my sin, my sin won't master me. What masters me, shapes my identity. The Holy Bible says that all humans have sinned. Matthew 15:19-20 says “…out of the [human] heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person." All of us are born into sin. We may do good things and live good lives, but our lives are marred by the consequence of sin. I was born in Oklahoma. I am an Okie by birth. People born in Taiwan are Taiwanese. Yet, every different nationality share a common birth defect. We are all born under the curse of sin. And sin, like the mythological Hydra, has many faces.
I have been visiting my father in Oklahoma. Visits home, similar to a trip to the proctologist, leave me…well…I digress. Surprisingly, this trip has been refreshing. Like an invisible neurosurgeon, God constantly works behind the scenes. His non-elective surgeries are often harder to stomach than a Hillary Clinton audiobook, but are necessary for my growth and development. Today, God went straight to the place in my psyche where I retreat. I have always just assumed that other guys possess an innate confidence and understanding of all things MAN. Conversely, my insides are haunted by an overwhelming absence of male love, affirmation and understanding, further complicated by years of submitting sexually to men, rather than relationally. Where most men wade peacefully in a sea of tranquility, I fight the exhaustion of treading endlessly on a vast ocean, rife with discontent and the ebb and flow of self-doubt and gender confusion. I don’t spend my days dwelling on my current inner state. I may struggle with my confidence in who I am as a man, but I have great confidence in who God is. Regardless of how I feel, God calls me to take up my cross daily and follow Him. He doesn’t always explain why He wants me to walk in a particular direction. He just says, “Walk and Trust”. I do my best to obey.
I often beg God for a solution to navigating the turmoil of my inner typhoon. When He’s silent or I choose disobedience, I devise my own solutions. Sometimes the easy answers I get from bad behavior feel better in the moment, even though I find myself treading harder and faster in the long run. As a result of a lifetime struggle with their broken sexuality, some guys fixate on ending the pain, by ending their lives. My focus has evolved to just dealing with the pain. When you’re dealing with a heart ravaged by hopelessness where the sole focus is relief, logic gives way to the fantasy of being free of strife and the method of how to get there is negligible. I am not suicidal, but I am one man among many adrift on the waves. On occasion I catch a glimpse of their faces and discern that some are sinking, perhaps for the last time.
As a young, odd, smart, nerdy boy, my “everything” was forged under the crushing weight of emasculating, feminine influences. I desperatly needed a place of refuge in the world of men. In the absence of knowing what I needed, I chose survival. I needed to be accepted, loved and wanted by knowledgeable men, where I could grow, learn and mature. Instead, I had to settle for being tolerated and managed, by the broken men in my life. Praise God, it's never too late for “broken boys” to find a place amongst good men.
There’s a new answer to Beyonce’s question, “Who run the world?” It’s no longer “girlz”, it’s LGBTQ+. Gay ideology may have seemingly cropped up overnight, but seeds have been sown for decades. LGBTQ+ influence controls the public expression of ideas, social interactions and establishes new cultural norms. It’s similar to all alien invasion in the movies. They show up on the scene, win the approval of a small, but influential group of people and slowly begin to implement small changes that affect the environment, culture and language, by whatever means necessary. All the while, the goal isn’t to co-exist. The goal is to create an atmosphere more suited to their life and comfort, current population be damned.
For years, guys who didn’t measure up to the average, red-blooded American male were ostracized or coerced to fit a mold that was built by men, not God. Over time, some of the “tolerated” got tired of conforming, hiding and suffering in silence. Young gay men, stronger than I, who were fed up, began to rise up, shouldering the consequences of speaking out, alone. Unfortunately, the aggressive, consistent push for LGBTQ+ freedoms generated an unpredictable tsunami, overtaking everyone in its path. The inertial force propelled the movement far beyond the initial goal of equality and generated a lust for nothing less than world domination. Like our Alien visitors, they began the infiltration of every aspect of the society they would replace. Christians now find themselves forced into hiding and silence, much the same place gay people found themselves when the church was orchestrating its own push for world domination.
Like prior, ruling civilizations, church leaders may have enjoyed a turn at bat to preach the dogma of conform or be conquered. Yet, in their insistence to wrestle the scepter of power away from the church, LGBTQ+ influencers also have the blood of dissenters on their hands. They may reject many Christian tenements, but they feverishly perpetuate the ideology of "conform or be conquered". Ironically, the same gay culture that once cried out for freedom and equality, now actively petition to deny that same privilege to those of us who want to leave homosexuality behind. Those of us who pursue God’s true design for sexuality, rather than a sexual expression broken by sin. The truth? People in both camps need to encounter Jesus, lest each “enlightened” people group continue tormenting successive generations with recycled techniques of oppression and a refined sense of arrogance
Sometimes my brokenness gives birth to the bastard thought that God created us and set us adrift. Sin caused me to seek fixes to my broken parts in the world of men. God alone possesses the answers to my questions. Some men search for answers in a bottle, under the hood of a car or the hem of a skirt. I searched in gay bars and the hearts of broken men; a realm bankrupt of knowledge and answers as elusive as the fix I pursued.
I left the gay community, but never stopped pining for the affirmation of men. In my gay life I prostituted my body for affirmation. In my Christian life, I prostituted my heart. I assumed that Christian men and pastors could be trusted, but my encounters with Christian men often left me just as hollow as a one-night stand. Yet, I don’t blame these men for their failings. I laid myself on the altar willingly, worshipping them as gods, because of how I felt about myself. Like the proverbial genie in a bottle, trapped for millennia, I was willing to grant the wish of any man who came along with the potential promise of freedom. The reality of any relationship is that another person can enlighten our minds, enhance our adventure and inflame our heart, but only God can complete us.
Terri Clark sings a country song that describes my relationship with God somedays.
“I’ll never leave. I’ll never stray. My love for you will never change. But I ain’t ready to make up, we’ll get around to that. I think I’m right, I think you’re wrong. I’ll probably give in before long. Please don’t make me smile. I just wanna be mad for a while.”
If you are honest and genuinely walk and trust wherever God says to go, those words probably resonate with you as well.
I have grown to love my early morning chat sessions with Father God. No matter how much I struggle with the truth of His word and the leading of the Holy Spirit, I know I can trust Him. It's time to stop deepening your hopelessness by searching for answers in the beds of other men. I implore you little brother to cry out to God in the midst of your darkness. God pursues us even when we fight His advances.
I will close with a simple story. When I needed it most, my GPS “malfunctioned”. Earlier in the day I had programmed it then immediately contracted amnesia. Ergo, I got lost. To my chagrin I found myself staring down the barrel of a toll booth with empty pockets. I wasn't sure how I was going to pay. Then the toll attendant said, “The guy ahead of you paid your toll, You are free to go." Instantly, I pictured Jesus saying, that’s what I did for you Mattie. Because of some bad programming in life, you got lost. I loved you enough to go ahead of you and pay your toll so that you could go free.
Joy Thinks I'm Crazy
Well...Here goes everything. I want to share some exciting news and some great testimony of my God with you all. I along with Vice President celebrate my "mental illness" as Joy Behar refers to it. I talk to Jesus and He talks back. It's awesome.
A few months ago, the Lord started marinating a thought through my brain. Over the next few months I watched God slowly, and steadily bring that thought to reality. What was the thought you ask? Well, the thought that is now becoming a reality is simply this.
It is time for me to sell my house. Yep. You read that correctly. I have watched God solidify this course of action over the last few months. But the glory and amazement of it all is the way that God has been slowly walking me through LETTING GO.
First I was called to let go of the house. When I agreed, not more than five minutes later, my neighbor came over and asked if I had a Frigidaire Refrigerator for sale. I said, I'm not sure what brand the one in my garage was, but I would check. Wouldn't you know it was a Frigidaire. I sold a fridge that wasn't for sale, for $120. But I had to let go.
Many people have asked where will you go. I tell them I haven't heard that part yet, but I am not worried.
I have watched God gift me a $25,000 roof. I have watched him sell my truck for more than it was worth to provide me a car with the excess, but I had to LET GO.
My Christmas decorations were the last bastion of hope, fun and goodness that I had. I was bound and determined to figure out how to keep them and move them, regardless of where I moved. Over the last few days, I have decided that when it comes to my Christmas stuff. I was ready, finally to...say it with me. LET GO!
Not more than 20 minutes later a friend of mine stopped by and said that he had taken the two, artificial Christmas trees that I had placed out by the curb. It was at that moment, that I felt led to give him much of the rest of the Christmas stuff I had left. For those of you who know me and saw my house this year, you know how hard that is for me.
I do not know what God has in store, but I do know that He has never let me down. Whether it is something grand or something bland that God holds for my future, I do not care my friends.
So many years ago, I handed my sexuality over to God, then eventually my newly purchased house, my amazing Toyota Tacoma and ultimately my finances and my future.
What I am doing is not practical. It doesn't make sense in the natural world, but I serve a supernatural God, who catches me when He asks me to LET GO.
I will keep you posted about the house, where I am going and what the future holds. For now, I just wanted to share the constantly unfolding testimony of what happens when you LET GO and Let God work.
The Road Ahead
So, I met a lady at a party the other night. I will just let that rest there as you predict the potential outcome of this post.
Some of you are praising God that your prayers have been answered, while others of you are immediately beginning to pray that this mystery woman has patience. A larger portion of you are waiting for the punch line.
So, I met a lady at a party the other night. Her name is Jenny. She introduced me to another woman named Jenny; her wife. When I hear a women talk about her wife or a man talk about his husband, it hits a part of my brain that is less shock and more intrigue. I have been introduced to plenty of same-sex wives and husbands. It is simply the sign of the age in which we reside.
Meeting the two Jennys led me down a path of retrospection. If things had been different, I would have married my longtime boyfriend in 1996. And 20 years later Iwould be introducing my husband, Joseph. That gave me pause for thought. To be honest, my first thought wasn't "thank God I didn't get married to a man." My first thought was more selfish in nature; "Thank God I didn't get married, because I wouldn't have enjoyed the freedom of a single life for the last 20 years." Whether I had married a man or a woman, is inconsequential when it comes to freedom. Life decisions are different when it's you alone at the head of the board room, rather than you, your spouse and a few kids all weighing in with their opinions.
While the world is celebrating marriage for one and all, I have to say that each time I see a gay couple together, my heart aches for them. Label me a hater, I don't care. It's isn't a judgment call. I have been where they are and beyond. I know that gay marriage is not in God's plan for His creation. I know the human desire to live a normal life intermingled with the complications of homosexual desires.
In case you were wondering, I didn't wake up one day and want to marry a man. By the time I got to the point, I had been through a myriad of conversations and decisions about my homosexual desires. Wanting to marry a man came after a thousands of compromises, daily shame and heartbreak and many acts of settling for less. I never thought I could leave homosexuality behind. I didn't want to live in the Christian worldwhere they seemed to hate me, so I made the best life I could in the mess of my broken sexuality. I look back now and know that it was only the prayers of my father that kept me from succumbing fully to the deception of homosexuality. If you are a praying parent, do not stop praying and fighting for your child. The bible says that the effectual, fervent prayers of a righteous person avails much.
I think that in today's culture, there is so much acceptance promoted and demanded for all things gay, that gay people get to the marriage decision a lot sooner than I did. I am thankful I had time to wrestle between the religions of homosexuality and Christianity. All these years later, I have a faith with Jesus and a walk out of homosexuality that were forged in the fires of trial and error; safe from angry, belligerent gays and angrier Christians who took "the bible is a sword" scripture way, too, seriously. The gay community goes after anyone with even an inkling of sexual struggle these days, expecting them to claim citizenship under one of the ever-growing collection of initials in the LGBTQ+ moniker.
This year I celebrate that 19 years ago on December 22, 1998, I said no longer will I run from God. No longer will I believe the lie that I was born gay or that gay is a reasonable compatriot of heterosexuality. No longer could I continue to believe something about myself that God didn't believe or orchestrate. I didn't leave homosexuality behind easily. I had to take action. There was a point where I had to stop waffling between the two great ideologies raging within me and freakin' PICK SOMETHING to believe in.
In the gospels, Jesus appears to his disciples after his crucifiction on the beach. After the death of Jesus, their friend and teacher, they had returned to their old lives as fishermen. I imagine that they were paralyzed with hopelessness and grief. What I find compelling and encouraging is Jesus's actions towards Peter. The weight of what Peter had done weighed heavily on him. He carried the weight of his sin into his interaction with Jesus. Jesus, in turn, brought something unexpected. Jesus reminded Peter of their bond and welcomed him to the next season of growth, despite his sinful past.
The Lord is doing the same for me. I am currently spending time some time on the shore with Jesus. He is calling me to a new season of growth. To lay down over 40 years of struggle and follow Him with a renewed spirit. He has called me to make decisions to free myself of the obstacles I have allowed to take root in my heart and to trust Him to do the necessary surgery on my soul. He is reminding me that before I was an earthly son, a minister, an ex-gay or an executive director, He is my savior and I am His chosen disciple. I feel the freest I have ever felt. Considering the Lord delivered me from the idea that I was gay for 27 years, that is saying a lot. As I divulge myself of the things that have kept me bound, I step into a new season, a new beginning and land where excuses stand between me and my ultimate purpose.
This new season is best described by an idea my pastor birthed a few weeks back. The life of a Christian is simply this.
Jesus. All day. Every day.
Name Changer
I have been contemplating a complete name change for this blog for awhile. The old name, "Unicorns, Alien, and Bigfoot - my post gay life", satisfied my need to be quirky and original, if even a tad bit snarky, but it left most people scratchin' their heads. The name, though descriptive, needed...something. Thus began a long process of contemplation. I texted my friend Rochelle. "Should I morph the old name with the new name?" "Should I give people time to acclimate to change?" "Or should I just simply change the name and be done with it?" Rochelle contemplated for about three seconds and texted back, "Rip off the Band-aid!" A huge thank you to the readers that have stuck around for the last 4 years. Here is hoping that more people join our ranks as we head out into the world under our new name. I started this blog at the behest of the Holy Spirit. He told me to write a blog from the perspective of a low-down, dirty Christian struggling well to serve Jesus while living on earth. Like many LGBTQ'ers, I grew up believing that I was born gay. At 17 I started college. I stopped attending church and began to seek out gay people who might help to sort out the confusion in my head. For the next 10 years I cultivated every aspect of my gay life, ever wrestling with the idea this wasn't how God intended for me to live. It's been almost 18 years since I walked away from my gay life. I don't walk with God so that I won't be tempted to be gay. I walk with God so that my creator can show me more and more each day who I was created to be.
The inception of this blog was about God calling me to live a Revelation 12:11 and Mark 16:15 kind of life out loud. Revelation 12:11 says that we overcome by blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. Mark 16:15 says go into all the world and preach the gospel. God was challenging me to use my gift of writing to share my story of healing from sexual brokenness. He was also giving me the freedom to share my trials and triumphs openly. No one else was sharing this kind of information with such honesty. So honestly that it simultaneously offended both Christians and the LGBTQ community.
There are times when I feel like a lone soldier, set adrift on the battlefield. I occupy a crazy niche between the church and the LGBTQ community. Both are shocked by what I say and neither actively welcome my presence.
Who am I? I am not a gay man. I am not a "Christian" as the world understands Christians. I am, a disciple of Jesus.
I have a heart for sparking compassion in the church for the gay community. I have a heart to lead the lost to Jesus. If the lost happen to be LGBTQ folks, then that's s a bonus. I don't a get a toaster in heaven when LGBTQ peeps say yes to God, but it warms my heart, because I have shared their lives, wrestled with their struggles, felt their brokenness and suffered their alienation. The LGBTQ community welcomed my brokenness long before the church could cope with my unmasked face. They are as loved by God as the next person.
The goal in changing the name of the blog isn't some weird publicity stunt bent on boosting waning interest. It is part of a greater effort to reach a greater audience and more adequately represent the content and the direction of ministry. God has gifted me with wisdom gleaned from the hurt and pain of walking through 27 years of sexual brokenness. It's a treasure meant to be shared. satan spent 27 years trying to keep me down. Jesus spent his lifetime so that I might stand. Whether you are just joining in or starting year number 5, I invite you to Take a walk With Me and share my journey around the Son.
If you won't. I will
Have you ever felt like giving up? What comes to mind when I say that? Quitting your job? Your marriage? Smoking that joint? Hitting that pipe? A one night stand? Giving in to porn? Suicide? We are bombarded, yet encapsulated. Bombarded daily by the attacks of the enemy, yet forever encapsulated in the arms of God. Our choices are often satan’s playground. satan has had more than ample opportunity to kill me, but God has never let go of me. Someone recently asked me, “Does ministry ever get easier?” I can answer with an emphatic Yes…and…No. I smile all day long when people are teachable. There are parents who receive the wisdom I have to offer. Then there are those folks I refer to as spiritual sandpaper. God applies them frequently and liberally to my rough edges.
This morning I was greeted with an email from a guy that used to attend our ministry a long time ago. We are having a ministry get together tonight and he has decided to come and join us. WOW WOW WOW! The story of the leaving the 99 to get the 1 is alive and well.
I love reaching the marginalized folks in the LGBTQ+ community, MY COMMUNITY, with the word of God. I don’t like having to deal with church politics, tradition and the antiquated, ministerial techniques that have only isolated and alienated the people of the gay community. The days of “Love the sinner, hate the sin” are long gone. If you are preaching it, then you belong in a warehouse somewhere next to a Tucker and a pile of T-rex bones. If you are wanting to have an impact on the gay community, then before you start talking about what gay people may or may not have chosen, take a good look at your own sin buddy. When you are ready to get honest, let’s get some coffee and get to work.
For the most part, churches and the pastors of those churches have abdicated their right to speak into the lives of LGBTQ+ people. They haven’t spoken the truth in love. They have spoken a partial truth in manipulation to try and get “those people” to straighten up. I feel like Dr. Phil would ask the church, “How’s that working out for you?”
When it comes to ministering to the gay community with the truth of the word of God, the church has lost the battle. Yes, the bible is a sword, but it is also a well spring of life. LGBTQ+ people aren’t showing up en masse to our church. They will one day, but for now that is the niche where my ministry lies. LGBTQ+ people have their own churches, bars and neighborhoods. They have retreated to these places, because we weren’t playing nice. They were tired of being persecuted and having their character maligned, by people that assume rather than relate. The largest part of my ministry plays out in real world scenarios not in the church. (WHAT? Clutching pearls. GASP!) Not in the church? The bible doesn’t say, sit and smugly wait for the 1 to return to the 99. It says, leave the 99 that are fat and happy and unconcerned about the lost and go find the one that really needs and wants help. .
The ministry I direct is a relational one. It is not something that can be diagrammed and statistified (LOL) in order to make it more palatable to Christians with money. Yet, daily I am subject to a meddling kind of scrutiny, that doesn’t exist with other missionaries. For the past year, I have been “busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest”. I worked 5 part time jobs, direct two ministries and orchestrate every aspect of two giant garage sales. I am not living it up on the beach at Disney people, I am in the trenches. And quite frankly if you were, too, you might be a little more understanding.
I had a supporter call me up, again, to scrutinize how I might be spending their $50 a month. In stark contrast, I had a gay man who is married to his partner call and offer to pay for a scholarship to my upcoming inner healing prayer conference. WHAT? I remember that one scripture that says if my people refuse to praise me, then the rocks will cry out.
The hardest part of my ministry isn’t reaching the hearts of the gay community with the message of Jesus. The hardest part is getting Christians to pay for it. (Mic drop)
Our ministry is the classic case of “I don’t want to do that, but I will tell you how to do it.” Frankly, it insults and exhausts me. I am doing what God has called me to do. I can’t quantify my efforts, but I can see the results.
On more than one occasion, I have felt like giving up. The level of support for a Christian ministry to the gay community is not one of the churches priorities. Most churches have either aligned themselves with gay theology or simply stuck their head in the sand regarding this issue. If I was a missionary who sold everything to go live in a mud hut somewhere, wear burlap, eat rice and beans and play “impromptu” soccer games with the local children, people would be throwing money at me left and right. Their only expectation would be an occasional grainy picture through email of me and a yearly visit where I show up emaciated and looking fatigued. God has not called me to that though. I think that is where the confusion sets in. I don’t work hard enough for some and to others I work, too, hard. Since, I have chosen to live stateside, the level of care, concern and support is anemic at best.
It can be summed up in one statement. “I love what I do. I just wish other people with money did as well.”
I have probably lost about three of my 10 supporters with this email, but these things needed to be said. I am not the only under-funded ministry to the LGBTQ+ community in existence. I am simply vocal. I grow tired of limping along financially, as I do what God has called me to do.
If you won’t write the check, I will. If you won’t love you daughter or son’s partner, I will. If you won’t take your head out of the sand to share the gospel, I will. I love what I do. I will continue to do it until God calls me on or home. Funded or not. Tired or rested. You may think these to be spirited rants from a disgruntled heart, but you couldn’t be further from the truth. I spend each day wondering, plotting, thinking about how to make a difference in the lives of your kids, your relatives and friends in the LGBTQ+ community. You can make my job harder or easier. That is the only choice that exists here.
Heavy Breather
When I first visited Colorado, it was after living in the lowlands of Oklahoma for 14 years. On top of Pike’s Peak, I found myself gasping for air every few breaths. It was a simple problem that eventually passed. Yet, in the beginning each gasp for air brought on panic and anxiety. Breathing was something I had taken for granted. Something I never had to think about. Then one day, I decided to climb a mountain. After God formed Adam from the dust of the earth, the bible says in Genesis 2:7, “the LORD God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Adam’s first breath was on loan from God. It says that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils. I think about the CPR and first aid training I’ve had. Sure glad the Red Cross doesn’t perform CPR according to scripture. Can you imagine waking up to someone’s mouth firmly clasped over your nose? It would sure make movie drowning rescues a tad less romantic.
Our weekly life group lesson dealt with another kind of “breath of life”. I felt a little like Neo in the Matrix, wandering down the rabbit hole as God began to draw parallels between His breath of life for Adam and our breath of life for people. God began to unpack multiple life lessons in my head, with more twists and turns than a Game of Thrones Finale. When the dust settled, my knees were bent, my heart ached and I knew I had to consider each word carefully from here on out.
What did God teach me about the heavy consequences of my breath? He says that the tongue holds the power of life and death. Our words can lift people up or break them down. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up…”. Matthew 15:11 says that the stuff that comes out of our mouths defiles us.
God knows our infinite need for reminders along our journey on earth. That is why he consistently lays a trail of bread crumbs back to Genesis throughout the bible. He wants us to remember that first Divine breath that brought life to Adam. He challenges us to in turn to breathe life into those around us.
1 Peter 1:16 “because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Once again God uses scripture to say, if you wanna be like me you gotta act like me. He says I have good intentions, you should, too. I gave life with My breath. Give life with yours. Jesus tells us that if we believe in Him, we will do the works He was doing, and we will do even greater works than He did. We may not have God’s super powers, but we can be super powerful if we have God.
James 3:10 “Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing…this should not be.” I am convicted by this scripture, every time I unleash a verbal barrage of anger and disdain on tourists inside my car in traffic. I reminded of my selfish nature when someone says something that hits the “I’m Offended Lobe” in my brain and I go off.
As I contemplated this week’s lesson: think before you speak and distribute grace, not judgment with your mouth, I caught a glimpse of creation in my mind. God’s hands were still dusty from forming Adam from the ground. He was bent low over Adam, perhaps admiring His work. Then I imagine God taking in a deep breath, knowing full well the great good and bad of which Adam was capable. Knowing full well that Adam could choose to love Him or not, He never paused, He never stopped to reconsider.
He just breathed.
God chose to give life regardless of what Adam might choose or deserve. God challenged me in that moment to make the same choice. To love freely. To give life with every breath. God may have breathed life into Adam’s nostrils, but He is calling us to breathe life into the ears of the rest of creation.
"My Chosen Family"
When I was in my twenties Banana Republic came out with an ad campaign that, even for back then, pushed the envelope of societal norms. The tagline of their three page photo spread was “My Chosen Family”. Those words highlighted pictures of chiseled, male models holding hands with perky, yet elegant female models. As one turned the page there were guys holding hands with guys and girls following in their same sex steps. Those pages were life to my dead, lonely, closeted soul. It was veritable buffet of emotional porn that the enemy used to entice and ensnare simultaneously. They led me to believe I belonged somewhere. I don’t know if you are tired of hearing me pine on and on about what life was like back then, but frankly, I don’t care. Today, in a world where modern technology prevents us from being alone on a toilet for more than two seconds, people are still love starved and desperate for meaningful connection. People are still dying of interminable loneliness. I was that kid. I was that teenager. And somedays I am still that adult. A statement came to me last week that reverberated through the last 45 years of my life.
"I've never had a moment where I was alone, yet I've spent most of my life lonely."
As I hit the send button on each one of these blogs I feel like a scientist sending messages into outer space, waiting and wondering if I will get a response. There are times I know that I am sending out a literary cure for loneliness. Other times I know that I am letting someone know that Jesus has not forgotten them. That God will never leave them, forget about them or leave them alone. Then there are times that I feel this blog goes up like the Bat Signal performing multiple purposes using just one source of light.
I have been experiencing an awakening my friends. Like the feeling generated when you feel the first gust of a fall breeze or see one tiny, unexpected snowflake delivered by the wind. It has nothing to do with the physical seasons and everything to do with the spiritual season of my heart, my calling, God’s timing.
You may or may not know this, but I was born with a super sensitive heart; a blessing from God; a perceived weakness by some. I have suffered great damage to my heart and that sensitivity at the hands of family and those close to me. I couldn't choose my real family. So when the idea that I could actually belong to a loving family, a family of my choosing came along, it tripped every sensor in the “YES, PLEASE” portion of my brain.
I have long since forgiven those closest to me for the atrocities, real and perceived, that were perpetrated on me. Moving beyond the hurt feelings and the need for revenge prevented those who hurt me, from damaging me further. On the other side of forgiveness though, I emerged a different man with responses and reactions that had nothing to do with who God created me to be and more to do with the broken man shaped by the world. I spent the biggest part of my life wanting people to see me as smart, attractive, fun and accomplished. And an even bigger part investing so much time in trying to look like I had finally ARRIVED that I quickly lost sight of the journey and the ever changing destinations.
This past week as hurricane Irma devastated island after island and eventually my home state, I was safely tucked away in Oklahoma visiting my father. I was also blessed to connect with one of my oldest college friends. We hadn’t seen each other in 13 years. Our only knowledge of one another were the snippets of info and blurry pictures scattered across social media and the occasional search engine. Sitting down with my oldest friend, I was confronted with just how much life has passed me by. The passage of time revealed to me that neither one of us are the boisterous, boy crazy fools we were at Oklahoma State. I realized that out of every other person in my life, Scotty knows me better than any human on the face of the planet. That is partially because he has known me so long, but mostly because I decided long ago, he could be trusted and I let him in.
There are Sundays that I am feel like I am being more truthful than every other person in church. I can spot BS from a mile away and smell it from 5. I don’t make friends easily. I don't trust easily either. I feel like someone always has ulterior motives. I imagine that most people as characters in a bad English spy movie. I look for inconsistencies in their stories. Every once in a while the Lord leads me to good people. The Holy Spirit gives me the go ahead and I start a long and meaningful relationship. satan is always stirring up the microscopic seeds of my past to spawn a fresh batch of sh...shtuff. New people who remind us of people in our past, can often trigger old thought patterns, habits and responses. I fight daily to maintain these new relationships with the newly elected members of “my chosen family”.
Different than the people in those Banana Republic ads, the chosen family of my life nowadays are 3 dimensional. They have encountered sickness, heartache, divorce, rape and other atrocities. Some of them have been crushed under the weight of it. Their hearts may never love the same again. But the God we serve is the same yesterday, today and forever. The God we serve will always be by our side, and hold our hand even as He sees fit to allow us to walk through the fires of our everyday Hell.
I do my best to honor my father and mother as the scripture commands, but I will be damned if I will stay silent, keeping a lid on my pain and anguish, because those who have hurt me are now embarrassed by the truths that I share in the open. It is often the victims who suffers fresh, daily death, even after the perpetrators have long since forgotten their crimes.
I wrote a piece of poetry once that dripped with crimson rivers of vengeance. I would never physically harm anyone in real life, but I could murder my foes a thousand times over in my literary ramblings. When I laid down my right to vengeance and asked God for forgiveness and to cleanse my heart from the harm I had wished on my enemies, my chains fell away. For the first time, I could look long and hard into the lives of my tormentors and feel a compassion and an understanding for a life of familiar despair.
God is not my co-pilot as an 80’s bumpersticker once decreed. God is my life support system. Jesus tells me this, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." I sit here in the 2am dark of my Florida living room, praising God not that I found Him or He found me, but instead praising Him because I was never misplaced. Each and every step, each disappointment, each oopsy poopsy was known by my Father in heaven. He saw fit to allow each member of my family and my chosen family to shape, mold, chisel and sculpt the man you see before you today.
I am reminded of a song I used to sing when I was a little boy. “He’s still working on me. To make me what I ought to be. It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars. How loving and patient He must be. He’s still working on ME.” I most definitely have not arrived my friends. Some days, I hand out more apologies than accolades. Yet, as I sit here, in the wonderful space of Big Fish Ministry that my Father God provided to me as a refuge, I hear him whisper nightly to “You are My son. You are loved more than you know. You are cared for. You are my precious child. You have not been forgotten. And you will always be MY CHOSEN FAMILY. Love, Dad"
The World's Cra-Z
As I “pick up the pen” today, it’s like I am writing for the first time. As if waking from a coma in a world unrecognizable from the one I left behind. The gay community has celebrated many victories over the last few years. Victories that have ushered forth a palpable silence into our churches and a fear of non-compliance should anyone disagree with gay philosophies. As many gay people burst ceremoniously from the closet, those of us who choose to live for God and not our sexuality are forced back into a dark, cramped closet of the world’s design. My story is not so different from the people celebrating their gay lives these days. Our paths diverged where I exchanged my broken sexual identity for an identity in Jesus. I never dreamed that life would be this hard. This…lonely. Jesus told His followers that the world would hate us as they hated Him. That scripture was never on any of my memorization lists. If we are honest, persecution should be an expected part of the Christian walk; a fact that never makes it to the final draft of the Easter brochure. The world indulges daily at Satan’s banquet table. We carry around the message of Jesus in our hearts and lives. 2 Corinthians 2:16 says that “To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.” Hanging out with fellow Christians helps me get through the times when God leads me to engage the world.
When you choose the wide path, following wherever your feelings lead and go with the flow, you make virtually no waves. When you choose to swim upstream and live a life led by God’s word, be prepared for a satanic, spiritual tsunami around every corner. It’s often difficult to be a Christian in today’s world; but, I also get to add to my resume that Jesus Christ called me to walk away from my gay life. (Cue the wind and torrential rain!) I started this blogsite at the behest of the Holy Spirit. He told me to write a blog from the perspective of a low down, dirty sinner who Jesus made a saint by His grace, but still struggles with real issues. Talk about being a real person, with real issues who lives in a fallen world. I have ruffled a lot of church people’s feathers with this blog. Some have labelled me ‘edgy’ and ‘provocative’. Others have tried to silence me. I told my friend Patty that people can’t handle the way I share my life openly with gut level honesty. I have very few secrets. I try to live openly and honestly before God and people. She reminded me that honest testimony changes lives. I needed to hear that. It gets tiring being a lone voice bringing the truth on sexual issues.
Ten years ago I lived a double life where I kept my ex-gay community and my work community separated. It was reminiscent of 20+ years ago, when I was living a double life as a gay man. It was exhausting. Both scenarios were constructed out of fear. I woke up today, fed up and a little pissed off that I have let fear creep in again. With all the triumphs that the gay community has achieved, I feel a little Davidic in light of their Goliath influence on the world. Churches that used to preach the Word have now set the gospel aside to tout a religion of “love”, “tolerance” and acceptance of sexual immorality. Scriptures that once taught the sanctity of marriage, are being reinterpreted according to the emotions of men rather than God’s divine plan.
I find that people treat our ministry a bit like Terminix. They don’t want to call us. They wait until things are at their worst. Then they call last minute and only want us around long enough to “treat the problem”; then, we are relegated back to the perimeter of their lives. It is one of the loneliest, most forgotten, often despised ministries on the planet, because the impoverished are walking amongst us as skeletons disguised as the elite and celebrated. I find it especially difficult when trapped between the church who expects perfection from former gays and the gay community who lies in wait, ready to pounce if we trip in our humanity. Jesus is the only reason I keep hanging on. Jesus is my hope. The world is my judge. When I struggle with the temptation to look at gay porn (because that is one of many temptations in my life, even though I am not gay), Jesus gives me strength to pray as He did, “Not my will be done, but Yours Lord.” When people fail me, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Another interesting tidbit. In this Cramazing world we live in, someone is always fighting for control. Since the beginning, it has always been about control. Control, like crack, kills. When it comes to the topic of homosexuality, the church used to control the argument with guilt, judgment and loud voices. Fast forward. The church has lost its voice in the world and most of its control. The gay agenda stands at the wheel, steering the ship fueled by fear and shame heaped on all who disagree, exacting control through a system of one-way tolerance and double standards. When you dig deep though, you see that the gay agenda is leading much the same way that churches did. It’s as if they learned how to “lead” through observation and, though they loathed and feared the church, the gay agenda became just like them; drowning all in their wake.
As I pull myself from the wreckage created by the collision of the church and the gay agenda, I dust myself off and refuse to live one more day allowing fear of either to dictate any aspect of my life. The bible calls for us to be bold and courageous and to fear not. Jesus calls us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. I have a message deep in my bones that if not released will take me to the grave. I will celebrate 18 years away from my gay life this December. God helped me leave that life behind. He can help you do the same. God wanted me to leave that life behind. He didn’t offer it as a gift upon my birth, he cursed it as sin at the fall of man. I refuse to make a pact with the enemy regarding my sexuality. I decided to listen to the Holy Spirit when it came to my homosexual attractions and temptations.
Church people and pastors, listen up. How long will you remain silent on this issue? How much longer will you refuse to preach freedom for homosexuals from the pulpit. I beg you to end your silence, not to resurrect condemnation for the gay community, but so that you preach life to men like me who sit in your congregation, alone and afraid. Remaining silent makes you liable for our lives as we struggle on endlessly and alone. The world has made a brash, bold, overarching statement when it comes to sexual sin. When will you end your silence and allow life to flow in the desert of our dysfunction?