"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"

Back in the Pool

On the short commute to church, a song came on the radio that I really like. Considering that our local Christian station still plays "hits" from Amy Grant's first LP, it was quite odd.  I remember saying "I love this song" out loud and asked my friend to turn it up.  He misheard me and never changed the volume, so I tuned everything else out and focused on intently listening to the song.  To my surprise the music seemed to grow in volume.  Each word fell on my ears with greater clarity than before.  When the song ended, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me.

He said that getting close to God is like what I had just done trying to hear to my song.  It wasn't about asking God to get louder thus drowning out the noise of my life.  It is about pressing in to hear God's voice at the level He is currently speaking, while letting the cacophony of life fade away.  I sat there dumbfounded.  In a split second, God had deposited a thought so simple, yet so profound into my life; press in to God and the cares of this world will fade away.

During church, our pastor's wife, Christine, got up to share an encouraging story.  Her story bore the same spiritual DNA as my God encounter in the car.  God was trying to teach me something.  I asked her to share her story, in writing.  Here is what she shared.

"As a Florida girl, a swimming pool and a sunny afternoon were the perfect combination most months out of the year.  I loved to swim! I loved the crazy activity of it: diving, cannonballs, Marco Polo with my brother.  I could be found with stickers on and baby oil to get a 'tattoo' from the sun on occasion.  But what I loved the most was putting on goggles and slipping down to the bottom of the shallow end of the pool, laying there for as long as I could hold my breath.   I would release air slowly so I could sink to the bottom and not struggle to stay down.  I could see the bright sun differently breaking through the clear water.  There were hardly any other noises and in the silence, the view was captivating to me.  That kind of 'full immersion' allowed a different viewpoint of the very, same sky I was under day after day.

Just over 3 years ago, we celebrated the birth of our third child, Eli, our bonus baby.  He is a blessing unexpected; a gift beyond our wildest dreams.  In the weeks following his birth, in the midst of sleepless nights, disconnection from church and friends, and the normal routine of life of connected with God through worship and the Word, a darkness crept into the vacancy and threatened to steal my joy, my song.

The song of my life is the testimony and love letter written on my heart by God himself.    It's chorus full of the remembrance of who God is and how real He has been and continues to be in my life. It is the testimony of Him: pursuing me, rescuing me, redeeming me and saving me.  It is the power of His presence to change and remold me over and over. To be more like Him, as I yield to His strong and gentle hands.  The more time that passed for me, "out of the pool" so to speak, of worship and relationship with God, the harder it was to remember my letter or sing my song.   In the quiet of the night during a middle of the night feeding, the Lord whispered to me,

"Get back in the pool"

Slip under the abundant waters of grace, mercy, presence, truth, and power

Sink to the bottom

Breathe out the cares, needs, questions and fears long enough to see and hear Him clearly again

And an amazing thing happened...

I found my song and began to sing it again."

Jesus: Expletive, Weapon or Freedom

About a month ago, I celebrated the 17th anniversary of the day I walked away from homosexuality.  There were no cakes, no banners or brightly colored, celebratory paraphenalia; only the amazing recollection of the day that Jesus became something more to me than a crass expression used by irreverently or the weaponized tool of manipulation used by religious zealots.  Jesus Christ.  What a powerful name!  Jesus' life and ministry was the fulfillment of many prophecies in the Old Testament. During those cold moments at the close of 1998 and the cessation of my sexual escapades, Jesus fulfilled one scripture for me above all else. Proverbs 18:24- "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." A friend that sticks closer than a brother.  I had lived a life virtually spitting in the face of Jesus, but at the end of my rebellion He was standing there saying "Welcome Back". Back to reality. Back to His will.  Back to life. The Walking Dead, though science fiction, was my reality for 2 decades.  I spent my life focused on getting beyond the difficult junk in order to get to the good stuff on the other side.  Good stuff was forever elusive.  Life had become a vast swamp and I wandered endlessly, pursuing an ever changing destination.   Conversely, the Old Testament account of Joseph speaks of thriving in difficulty.  Joseph was sold into slavery, stolen from his father and imprisoned on false charges. Yet he consistently gave glory and praise to God, rather than moping about.  He thrived, because he was surrendered to God.  It was said of Joseph in Genesis 41:38 "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?"  As I wandered through the desert of my dysfunction, I repeatedly said 'No Thanks God', blaming my misfortune on Him.  Joseph's peace in time of trouble was always something of an illusion to me.

As a young, gay man I wielded words like weapons.  I made sport of being angry, bitter and offensively witty.  In restrospect, it's clear those aren't Christlike attributes. But to my young, gay mind, tainted by the deceptive beliefs of:  "abandoned by God" and "hated by Christians", words were a source of survival.  So much of the scripture lately lends support to choosing Jesus over sin of any kind.  There are benefits to serving the One Master, Jesus, over the other master, our broken sexuality.

My father's effective and powerful prayers and growing up in a church bathed in scripture, are the two main reasons I was able to leave homosexuality and stay away.  In my own ministry, I have realized that I don't pray for people nearly as much as my father did for me.  God is not bringing young men to me so I can tell them to behave.  God is bringing men into my life who struggle so that I can reiterate the fact that Jesus is the answer to what ails them.  The Holy Spirit revisited that idea a few weeks ago in the wee hours of the morning.  "Just tell them about Jesus," he said.  It's always been about Jesus and will always be about Jesus.  There is no other name under heaven by which a man can be saved.   I pondered these thoughts yesterday, as I sat across the table from a young man who had just told me he was on the verge of making a huge decision.  He was deciding between living a life for God or going headlong into the gay life.  This was no easy decision for him.  And no easy confession.  I have been in this young man's life for a little over a year.  I've seen him victorious over sin one day and giving into it entirely the next.  Keep in mind.  He never came right out and said, I plan on screwing up my life forever by leaving my wife and family behind in order to live as who I truly am.  He is tormented by the decision, but he sees no other way.

As a Christian who struggles with homosexual desires I understand his pain.  What struck my heart the most was one of the reasons he said he was giving up and going into the gay life.  He said it would just make things easier.  To which I replied, "For whom?".  I read in scripture today about serving two masters.  While it is primarily used as a sermon on serving God or money, it speaks volumes to a principle I alluded to earlier; choosing one master to serve.  The bible says that no servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will loyal to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon. -Luke 16:13.  As I chatted with my friend, I could indeed see the fork in the road where he was standing.  The road on the left was an easy, short journey through life followed by a tormented, infinite journey into hell.  The path on the right was narrow and winding, filled with hardship for a time filled with an eternity with a loving God.  My friend had spent the bulk of his life stuck between gay and God, taking on the feel good parts of Christianity and the exciting parts of his gay life, while never fully committing to either.  It was the proverbial life of living on the fence.  One which the New Testament describes God as saying, and I am paraphrasing, be hot or cold, because you will never amount to any good as a lukewarm, fence dweller; spiritual limbo if you will.

Conversations like this are frequent in "ex-gay" ministry.  After the death of Exodus International and the onslaught of government, approved gay marriage, many have lost sight of the truth of scripture.  Many have lost the will to fight.  While perusing Facebook last week I read a post that hit like a gut punch.  No it wasn't "Hillary 2016".   The post said simply, "Here is a picture of my beautiful wife."  Those words were uttered by a friend I used to attend church with and minister alongside.  That friend's name is Lisa.  Daily, I see the casualties of homosexual sin and desire.  I don't hate homosexual sin for all the preconceived Christian reasons.  I hate the idea that the people I know and love are surrendering themselves to a life where they will be chewed up, spit out and disrespected.  A world where Jesus is neither honored nor exalted.  At the end of the day though, they are subject to the laws of the land we chose to live in.  They may be submitting themselves willingly, but I know the realistic pull of sexual sin.  It sets in at an early age and steals away a person's youth and life experience.

I see now why my father spent so many nights on his knees in prayer before God.  His heart ached for the lost, as mine does now.  If you find yourself at the same crossroads as my friend, please reach out before you make a life altering decision.  If you have someone in your life who is about to succumb to the pressures of sexual desire and temptation, please don't stop praying for that person.  Though I have traveled to Alaska, Australia and beyond to share Jesus with whomever would listen, I found myself defeated in my own backyard.  For a moment I gave up on my friend.  The thought crossed my mind that I was so tired of losing friends to homosexuality. Later that night I repented for giving up so easily and prayed earnestly for the life of my friend and other sons and daughters.  I asked God to remind satan that he's been defeated.  I went to battle for lives that truly matter and souls with whom I want to spend an eternity in heaven.

Jesus was fully a man.  Jesus is fully God.  And where I get it wrong and build expectations and hurdles for people, He builds a bridge.  You can know Jesus today, too.  He doen't ask you to clean yourself up before you come to Him.  He simply invites you to come.  If you are struggling today at the crossroads, there is freedom from homosexuality, but most importantly, there is life in Jesus Christ.  I am living proof.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11  - 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed,you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Beltway Meltdown

Ever have one of those days where you take a melatonin instead of your daily vitamin. Or worse yet, you fumble around the toothpaste drawer, only to load up your favorite brush with a big, lump of Preparation H? Yeah, me either, but now that I have your attention, I would like to tell you about my last two days of working on a Florida State toll project with a wondrous menagerie of Florida’s finest. I applied for a temporary job to pay off some extra bills that were looming over my head this holiday season. I found myself knee deep in good, ole boys and folks from around God’s creation. I haven’t seen that many wigs, weaves and hairpieces since the Dolly Parton concert I swore I would never tell anyone I attended.

One lady in particular was witnessing up a storm for Jesus yesterday and cussing out the boss and storming off the property today to the cries of, “I’m gonna call a lawyer.” After her outburst, I caught myself chanting lines from the Exorcist, “I think we need to call an old priest and a young priest. The power of Christ compels you.” I haven’t witnessed a meltdown like that since Sea World turned the sprinklers on a group of unsuspecting protestors. This woman made Rosie O’Donnell’s tirades on the view look like a poetry reading.

I remember one quote the day before the lady had proudly said to another lady waiting in the crowd. “You ever here of that saying ‘Blessed and Highly Favored’? “, she had asked.   The woman nodded yes. Suddenly the first woman’s arms shot out from her body, curved back into a giant arc towards her torso as she pointed feverishly at herself. She was signaling that she was indeed, Blessed and Highly Favored. As are many Christians in the faith these days. What was interesting to me was that the same person who was Blessed and Favored one day, was Cursing and dropping F bombs the next.

Now certainly we can all have bad days, no doubt. But if you drop Jesus calling card one day and then light it on fire the next, a gut check might be in order.

The one thing I observed about the woman was that as long as she was in charge and in control, she was Blessed and Favored. Yet, the minute she was asked to submit to authority, she came out fighting and a cussing. She didn’t listen to our instructor at all. She kept doing her own thing. My main observation was her own foolishness got her into trouble, but she blamed everyone else for the issue.

God taught me as I watched the scene unfold today. You can be Blessed and Highly Favored by God, but if you act like a moron you might just get fired. God wants to bless us, but He calls us to use common sense and submit to authority. He calls us to be living examples to those around us, from the mountaintops and from the valleys.

People treat God like a box of condoms. They put Him on just before they are about to get in trouble. When He’s done His job, they discard Him until the next opportunity. Our relationship with God should be more akin to Abstinence. I’ll define Abstinence for today’s culture. Abstinence is the fact or practice of restraining oneself from indulging in something. If we have decided to serve God, then we are making the decision to stay away from the things that bring death and destruction into your life. God didn’t set himself as a safety net of grace so we can go about doing whatever we want. God came and lived as we did, was tempted in every way we were and died a horrible death so that we would never have to.

After watching the lady today, I remembered one of the best lessons God has ever taught me.

No one...deserves my anger.

Uncovering the Broken Boy

The world has been talking to me this week. A lot. Tonight I was out watering my blueberry plants, sporting the remnants of an ill conceived, Halloween costume, a tattered Hawaiian shirt, I wasn’t worried what the neighbors think. I make a concerted effort to let them believe that I am the crazy neighbor they shouldn’t mess with.   As I stood there, like a deranged, mental asylum escapee, I was mentally rifling through conversations that had taken place over the past two weeks. I shared my story briefly at a small, country church. I had three minutes to cover 44 years.   At the mention of homosexuality, all the oxygen was sucked out of the room. I was transported back to my childhood church, where I knew better than to share my struggle.   I left the church feeling rejected; kinda judged. I also left knowing how so many gay people feel about some churches in our nation today.

Juxtapose that event with a conversation I had with my unchurched, Jewish neighbor, who has a lot of gay friends.   They asked about what I had been doing since I left Sea World. I shared everything, They surprised me by their understanding of what I do for ministry. Shouldn’t the understanding and interest have come from the church?

One of the other conversations I was privileged to have was with the first gentleman that ever graced the halls of Big Fish Ministry as a participant back in 2009. Our relationship has been rocky and often riddled with misunderstanding. That changed this week. We agreed to let God lead the conversations from here on out; to love each other better. Gratitude flowed.

I sat down with a 19 year old kid who lost someone close and calls me on occasion to chat, because I am not stranger to death and loss myself. We sat at a coffee shop and chatted. I am seeing huge growth in his life. I am seeing him peer out from behind the curtain of fear to claim the abundant LIFE that our great God has promised him. I am thanking God for letting me be used as a vessel for His love.

I got to chat with a talented artist who has some amazing abilities. He gifted me with some of his creative time to sit and chat. Three of the four conversations I had this week were with straight guys who have never had gay temptations. Yet, when we begin to chat their struggles resonated with mine. The Holy Spirit then pointed out that I don’t have a gay struggle, but simply a human struggle, similar to other guys on the planet. Can I tell you how freeing that is to a guy who felt “bad different” during his young life.

My healing journey with Jesus Christ is the proverbial onion people: layer-by-layer, piece-by-piece. God often reveals truth slowly to me, so that I don’t engage in sin & run away from the man He is shaping me into.

The conversation with the artist revealed a deep inner wound that I don’t think this guy has shared with too many. I asked his permission to share. He said Yes. That day, I felt like the Holy Spirit told me to title our time together was to be called “Uncovering the Broken Boys”. And it was funny, because for the rest of the week, that is exactly what the Holy Spirit did.

If it wasn’t me He was uncovering from the rubble, it was the person across the table from me. God is in the business of rescue missions, but He’s really good at search and recovery as well.

I had two more conversations that were polar opposites.   One of the guys I mentor sold his computer, because it was leading him to connect sexually with other guys.   The other guy kept making excuses about why he needed his phone or computer. He rationalized about keeping some gay friends while breaking it off with others. With both I offered experiential advice. The difference between the two was this. One guy readily surrendered the “poison” he’d been drinking daily, while the other just kept trying to “change the labels” on the bottles.

I made my best effort to take God into every conversation this week. I was only looking to help or connect, but God had other plans. I started a conversation with a lady at Wal-mart and ended up praying for her. Like Jesus back in the day, this week I was all about my Father’s business. I didn’t used to be that kind of man. I used to search for meaning and value in the arms and lives of the gay men I’d meet.   What a redemptive work God has done.   The bible says in Galatians 1:10 “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”   I found myself in a very different place with these folks. God’s opinion is where I lay my head for rest these days.

My final conversation was with a guy who had no idea who I was, but I knew who he was. He was a guy that had been sexually involved with a guy, while I was actively mentoring that guy. For some reason, God brought him back into my life. When I realized who this guy was, I just wanted to throat punch him, because of the trouble he had caused. I quickly realized though, it wasn’t anger I was feeling, but a mix of emotions. At night’s end, I settled near the corner of “Love him where he’s at and What are you doing God?”

Who are you talking to this week? Where are those conversations leading you? Is God stirring evangelism in your heart? Or is the enemy stirring horny in your loins? Are you tired of struggling with the same old stuff? Are you ready to give up because you feel you are all alone? My conversations led me to Jesus and healing. The bible says in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

Let the conversations begin. Let healing flow.

Refuse to spend one more day in the prison of your silence.

Simply. Beautifully. Jesus.

The smoke from the SCOTUS is clearing, our Women’s soccer team has World Cup status and the White House is white again. Will life here ever be the same? I wrote my blog about the SCOTUS verdict and went back to doing ministry. I run a pretty non-political ministry to men who desire to walk away from their gay lives. We don’t picket with Westboro or hang out at gay pride parades apologizing for every misspoken, misinterpreted word the church has uttered since the dawn of man. We answer phones and emails and pray for people in the gay community to have a personal encounter with Jesus.   At Big Fish Ministry, we’ve decided to serve the gay community by storming the coffee shops not the courthouses.

I attend Illuminate Church. This past Sunday, Pastor Ed preached on Peace. It wasn’t a feel good message, but it was freakin’ awesome. I found myself under the same, moral microscope many Christians use on the rest of the world. Lately, God has been leading me to change my approach to the conversation of homosexuality. He is challenging me to enter the discussion at a different level than the world expects from Christians; promoting a dialogue of redemption, rather than accusation. Pastor Ed’s message confirmed God’s leading. “If you can’t bring peace to a situation,” he said, “then maybe you should take yourself out of the situation.” Thumper, of Disney’s Bambi has this to say: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” A paraphrase of author and speaker Bob Hamp says ‘we need to be thoughtful before adding our voice to the noise.’ As Christians what we say about homosexual sin may be 100% scripturally true, but sharing the message like 100% Jerks, allows our bad attitude, not the love of Jesus, to be what people remember.

Growing up, I was “the good son”; the rule follower. I often did “the right thing” to avoid punishment and gain praise, rather than to simply be obedient.   I was doing the right thing for the wrong reason. This skewed obedience gave rise to a “holier than thou” attitude. I secretly resented the rules, but I was afraid to break them. I developed a jealousy and resentment for the “rule breaker” closest to me, my brother. My desire to partake in adventure with the rule breakers was far outweighed by the expectation to “follow the rules”. Later in life, my allegiance to “rightness” would cause me to erect impenetrable walls of scriptural TRUTH between those lost in sin and God’s GRACE. I see now that my “good” intentions served to keep people from Jesus rather than lead them to Him. God often reminds of this: God’s grace was the lens through which I first glimpsed the truth of Jesus love for me.

Someone once said that Truth and Grace are like the wings of a bird. Acting in tandem they take the bird to the highest heights. Take one away and the bird will never leave the ground.

A friend who wasn’t particularly pleased with my calm response to the legalization of gay marriage frantically posed the question, “What if the government tries to shutdown your ministry and tells you that you can’t say that homosexuality is a sin.” My answer was simple.

“I guess I’ll just tell people about Jesus then. And when that is deemed illegal, I’ll start a prison ministry.” My answer, tinged with sarcasm and truth, is devoid of panic and steeped in reality. If you stick your hand in a piranha’s mouth and are surprised when they bite you, that isn’t the piranha’s fault pumpkin.   God is not surprised that “the lost” are acting…well…lost. We shouldn’t be either. What we should be doing is preparing for the day when everything our unsaved friends have turned to for answers, denies them the rapture they seek. If we have loved them well, they’ll be more apt to listen to the truth about Jesus, than if we had tried to force feed them “God” when their appetite was for something a little more devilish.

I could let every bad political decision turn me into that red-faced, angry guy with the veiny forehead, and bad attitude. Will that ever communicate the heart of Jesus? Jesus washed the disciple’s feet. Peter cut off a man’s ear with his sword. What is a better way to further God’s kingdom: humbly serving or wielding a sword?

One of my neighbor’s yards was looking a little Oscar the Grouch-ish: green, disheveled and angry. She was going through “SOME STUFF”. I texted, to see if we could mow her lawn. She said “Yes”. When she answered her door, gratitude and exhaustion were equally palpable. “These other neighbors should be ashamed of themselves. You’re the first one who has even bothered to call in six months.” Some people had called the HOA and Code Enforcement to report her unkempt yard. Not one neighbor had called to check on her. Instead of choosing to serve, they chose to wield their swords to insure her compliance, rather than their lawnmowers to restore her dignity.

A few days later she texted that our one simple act of service had caused a ripple effect. Her self-esteem had returned. She wasn’t embarrassed to play in the yard with her kids. Her desire to connect with God returned.   A family member showed up to help, after feeling so convicted because someone outside the family helped and they had not. In the end, Christopher and I, simply stepped up to kneel down and extend a hand beyond the mess to the person buried beneath the rubble.

My mom was always fond of combatting my poopy attitudes with “you get more flies with honey than you do with buttermilk”. She also said, “make sure the words you say today are soft. You might be eating them tomorrow”. My dad was the chief engineer of the rescue operation that traversed the borders of Hell in order to bring me back to the land of the living. My dad prayed daily for me, even when I didn’t want it. He reached out to me in love, even when I was a hot, vitriolic mess. My father served as a missionary to the gay community by simply loving me unconditionally. He started a fire in me for the gay community that God later confirmed with Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…”.

The Holy Spirit is leading me to approach the conversation on homosexuality from a redemptive perspective. Like my father, I am choosing to humbly engage the lost, the broken and wounded men and women of the gay community. Always remembering that my past bears a striking resemblance to their daily existence.

The only hope for either of us is Jesus. Simply. Beautifully. Jesus.

Viral Seduction

Acts 20:26-31 26 "Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. 27 For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!..." I heard a sermon from a pastor in Nashville. He zigzagged around his topic like a redneck running serpentine trying to outrun alligator. With 10-12 minutes left, he affirmed that his church would now extend membership privileges and marriage rights to LGBT attendees. There was a mixture of silence and applause. The sermon can be summarized in one paragraph: “50 minutes from now I’m going to horribly compromise the word of God, taking this congregation in a direction that honors people, not God. We are no longer going to concern ourselves with obedience to God’s word. Instead, we are going to become an all-inclusive social club led by human emotion and unbridled compassion.”  Scripture after scripture comes to mind.

Galatians 1:10 “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."

For years, I’ve watched friends and mentors wander from the truth of God’s word when it comes to homosexuality. The ebb and flow takes a toll on my heart. It never gets easier to watch, but I’ve grown to expect the falling away. Facebook often bears witness when another “spiritual Titanic” is sinking. The bible even says that if possible in last days that even the very elect of the Lord will be deceived.

I run a ministry to a small cross section of men in the gay community, who find themselves desiring a life surrendered to God and not governed by their SSA.  I can understand where this guy in Nashville is coming from. Yet a ministry of all love and grace and no truth, is a false doctrine that leads people astray. A hyper grace centered focus is one factor that helped capsize the ministry of Exodus International. The Nashville Pastor’s approach to marriage and the LGBT community is steeped in worldly value, but skewed biblical truths. A Facebook friend posted the video with this caption: “Happy to call this man my pastor.” My heart winced. The effort to include a “disenfranchised” few, had instantly discredited my story of Jesus’s transforming power. The posting was from an acquaintance who knew my story, but chose to believe a lie. My heart says that people in that body of believers are being cheated out of what Jesus Christ can do when we surrender our broken sexuality to Him.  All it takes is one misinformed, misguided pastor speaking out of the recesses of his heart instead of being submitted to the word of God.

Matthew 15:13-14 13 But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”

Gay “christianity” is not an authentic Christian walk.  Matthew 15:8-9 8 "These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.  9 And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”  It is a offshoot of Christianity focused more on the acceptance of homosexual sin and those involved in it, rather than focusing on surrendering one’s whole heart to the will of God. Here are some telling quotes from the Gay Christian Network mission statement.

“Through conferences, speaking events, videos, message boards, and more,                  we’re TRANSFORMING THE CONVERSATION in the church and working to ‘share Christ’s light and love for all.’ ” (Emphasis is mine.)

1 John 5:3 “In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands… “. Despite repeated attempts by gay advocates to “TRANSFORM THE CONVERSATION” and rewrite scripture, God will never change His conversation on sexually immoral behavior. Scripture says that “love for God, is keeping his commandments”. Loving God even means honoring His commandment to abstain from acting out homosexually, not devising ways to reframe the biblical narrative on homosexuality. James 4:4 claims this “…Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” The truth is, God starting laying the foundations of this conversation long before satan’s Public Relations team began retooling it.

I am reminded of Psalm 119:105 “Your WORD is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” As Christians, we are to be led by God’s word, not man’s opinion. Matthew 22:37 “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul…and mind.’ 39 And…‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Verse 39 is deceptively used to ‘preach’ the concept that loving someone unconditionally means universal acceptance of their sinful behavior. Christ loves us, but He doesn’t approve of our sinful behavior.

The Gay Christian movement is strong, as are all attacks of the enemy against God’s plans for humanity. I’m reminded that large gatherings of sinful people isn’t something new; it’s been happening for millennia. However, the size of the crowd is not proportionate to the “rightness” of the cause. It simply bears witness with Matthew 7:13- “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”  

I believed for 20+ years that I was born gay. For 16 years, I have allowed Jesus Christ to be the driving force behind my beliefs, rather than my broken sexuality. Authentic Christianity doesn’t’ come with a prefix.   Promoting gay “christianity” means making room on the pew for alcoholic Christians, gluttonous Christians and straight, unmarried, sexually active Christians. We all struggle with sin, but when sexual immorality is hybridized with our Christian walk, God is not honored. We must surrender our sexual sin to God for His help, instead of submitting it to God, demanding His approval. Jesus is more into transforming lives than opinions. He says in Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Alcoholics can get help for addiction. Overweight people have outlets for weight loss. Yet, satan has worked overtime to normalize the sin of homosexuality. Pastors and churches promoting freedom from homosexuality are vilified in the press.   Speak the biblical truth about sexual sin or support any organization teaching freedom from homosexuality and you’ll be attacked and brutalized. Any attempts at a balanced, intellectual dialogue are thwarted with cries of “Anti-gay” and “Hate Speech”.

I make the decision daily not to act on my SSA, the same way that unmarried, heterosexual Christians make the decision not to act on their OSA(opposite sex attractions). If the church said it was okay for straight people to act out on their sexual attractions, someone would call foul. So why is the church making allowances when it comes to the LGBT community?

I prayed for many years for God to remove my same sex desires. He never did. That didn’t mean that He didn’t hear me or that He created me gay. It simply meant that God’s plan of how to deal with my SSA didn’t involve a Holy Spirit zap.

God’s perceived indifference to my modern day prayers does not supersede the cacophonous authority of His holy scripture.

If God had zapped me during those late night, bedside prayer sessions, I do not believe I would have known Jesus as intimately as I do. If someone who struggles with SSA is honest about their early life experiences, common developmental patterns for SSA tend to emerge. In some cases, homosexual desires were, indirectly or directly, nurtured by the individual, friends or family. The bible says that “bad company corrupts good character”.

I didn’t choose to have SSA. I did choose to make bad decisions because of those feelings. While no one chooses to have same sex attractions, I do believe that men are created Artistic, Sensitive and Creative. The gift of sensitivity can be man’s greatest gifting or the source of his biggest wounding.

I am thankful that the church I grew up in never preached acceptance of homosexual sin. While I believe that the evangelical church should adhere to biblical standards for all forms of sexual immorality, I think churches should welcome the LGBT community. Where else are they going to find relationship with Jesus and freedom from SSA?

Walking away from homosexuality was one of the most difficult journeys I have ever taken. Ultimately, it was the disappointment and heartache of the gay life and the leading of the Holy Spirit that led me to Jesus. The thought of walking away from homosexuality generated many fears. “I’ll have to go through puberty again.” “I’ll have to wake up every day and tell myself ‘I’m not gay’. ” “I didn’t want to date women.” “I can’t trust God. He made me this way. He ignored my cries for help.” “No one has ever left homosexuality. It isn’t possible.” Thank God, none of that was true. I realized too late, that FEAR was a big part of my belief system. I lived my life believing in an angry, semi powerful God. Boy was I wrong!

One of the reasons homosexuality is so hard to walk away from is that it pervades every area of a person’s life. The defining characteristic of homosexuality is not a simple sex act between a same sex couple, but a level of brokenness so intricate that it forces a person to work desperately to restore some sense of normalcy to the chaos. That was my daily existence for 10 years.

At the end of the day, I don’t support the gay life. After having lived it myself, God demonstrated that homosexuality is not God’s best for anyone. As Christians our identity is defined by our Savior, not our sexual brokenness. In Matthew 7:20-21, the bible says that we will know other believers by the fruit they produce. It also says “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” The will of the Father calls us to abstain from sexual immorality. Every area of our lives is subject to the will of God.

Romans 14:12 woke me up to reality. “So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” God was going to hold me personally responsible for how I lived my life and my response to Jesus’ sacrifice for my sin. After living ten years as a gay man and calling myself a gay Christian, I knew I had answered ‘Yes’ to sin and ‘No’ to Jesus Christ.

Contrary to popular belief, Jesus spoke out against all forms of sexual immorality, homosexuality included. The bible never classified homosexuality separately than other forms of sexual immorality. You can credit modern day gay advocates for that. Jesus addressed sexual immorality in general in Matthew 15: 19, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person…”.  Sexual immorality, homosexuality included, defiles a person. That is pretty clear.

I wholeheartedly agree that the church hasn’t been kind to the LGBT community. However, over sympathizing as a means of correcting the wrongs of the past fosters a grotesque wave of hyper-sensitivity, where rather than bringing truth and grace simultaneously to the wounded, we bow to their every whim.

In the wrong hands, Love becomes a virus rather than a vaccine.

Jesus. nothing else matters.

In the middle of cooking my dinner last night, the Holy Spirit brought a guy to mind and simply said you need to check on him now. I’ve experienced this Holy Spirit inkling before, but had not experienced in awhile. Anyway, I sent the guy a text. The first return text simply said, “Ummm”. The next few texts proved that it was indeed the Holy Spirit’s voice I’d heard and not just my own inner monolgue.           My friend was arranging an intimate encounter with another guy, when he received my text. I shared my Holy Spirit prompting with him. I also let him know that he had the chance to stop the encounter; that the Holy Spirit was looking out for him. My friend’s exact words were, “It’s amazing how I can ignore the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but a text is hard to ignore.” Interesting. When we ignore the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit, sometimes He “phones a friend”. There were a few more texts that evening, but no deep conversation. A voice text in the morning confirmed what I already felt in my spirit.   Despite the warnings, my friend decided not to take the escape route and went ahead with the encounter with the guy.

Before you judge my friend, ask yourself, “Have I ever been there before?” The place where your flesh and your mind conspire to write a script and your body acts it out. That doesn’t absolve us of responsibility. It simply shows us that when we are caught up in our addictions we need supernatural help to break free.

I get lots of calls for help. Some guys are seeking God’s wisdom and some are simply seeking comfort in the moment. It is always a chance to practice humility. If I am simply compassionate, taking their woes on my shoulders, I make myself responsible for meeting their needs. In essence, I become their god. Where the humility comes into play, is realizing that only God can meet their need. I can get an emotional high from helping them, but I am really the only one benefitting. Every phone call should be centered on Jesus and steeped in God’s word. Every conversation should end in prayer. Colossians 3:16 “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit…”. If someone’s problems come to rest on my ego, then nothing eternal is accomplished.

When we neglect to factor Jesus into the equation of our lives, things just don’t add up. Jesus says it this way, "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.” –John 15:5. In short, we were built to be in relationship with the King of the Universe. Without the Word of God, without fully relying on Jesus, the struggle to break free from sin is done in our own strength. God gives us the strength to walk away. He also cuts the ‘rubber bands’ that keep yanking us back into sin when we’ve reached our limit.

We may have been survivor’s all our life. We may have been the most independent and reliable people on the planet. The veritable Kings of our Castle, but once we say yes to Jesus we must begin the process of surrendering all our “control” over to Him.

I have met many people who’ve said they tried to walk out of homosexuality and it didn’t work. So they stopped trying. Jesus is not something you test drive like a car. He’s a ‘someone’ you continually, diligently pursue for the rest of your life.   James 4:8 says that if we draw close to God, He will draw close to us. More often than not those who’ve tried and failed are doing it in their own strength. Jesus never gets full control of their lives, but He definitely gets all the blame when SSA feelings don’t go away. It isn’t fair. To God? To the struggler? To the people that they will influence?

That being said, this is my official resignation letter. I hereby abdicate my right to the throne as King over my domain and destiny. I hereby resign as the King over anyone else’s as well. I humbly take on the duty of letting my life and my words lead people to Jesus; the person who helped me with my brokenness. The Cross of Christ; where “simply existing” ends and real life begins.

It is my greatest desire to point you to Jesus. He is the only reason I have walked in freedom from the sin of homosexuality. Jesus is the only reason that my same sex attractions never truly solidified into a gay identity. If you are leaning on anything other than Jesus, then I lovingly say you have it wrong. If you are allowing your pride and independence to stand between you and fully surrendering your life to Jesus, you are missing out. If we are not fully relying on Jesus for everything, then we are destined for disappointment. Doomed to tread the same, circular rut, over and over wondering why progress seems so elusive.

Jesus says this, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” -John 14:6.

Jesus also said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” -Matthew 16:24. David Crowder says it this way. “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Lord, I want to go to heaven, but I don’t want to die. Though I long for the day when I have new birth. Still I love livin’ here on earth.”

Luke:14:26 "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” Jesus isn’t literally saying to hate anyone. He is simply saying that we are to love Him more than our family and even our very lives. He is saying that He is to be our main influence in this life. Jesus was able to put God’s will before His sexuality. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.

During the years after I walked away from homosexuality, I struggled with doing the right thing. I lived righteously. I lived carnally; like the tides, my spiritual life ebbed and flowed. I knew the bible didn’t support the theology of gay “christianity”, to which I had once subscribed, but I was having trouble reconciling my beliefs and broken sexuality. Eventually, I found Galatians 5:16 “…Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” The bible was basically saying that if I pursued a walk with God, then I could find freedom from my gay life.

I was a few months into my walk with God, when I felt God calling me into a deeper relationship with Him. I had spent 10 years doing my own thing, with my whole heart. It was time to follow God with the same kind of reckless abandon. I didn’t want to be like any of the people Jesus mentioned in Luke:9:57-62.

57 Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go." 58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." 59 Then He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."

60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God."

61 And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house." 62 But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

The Christian walk is about forward motion. I couldn’t see progress on a daily basis when I was just starting to walk with God, but eventually after a few months, I felt lighter. Continue walking toward God and away from your sin and eventually you will see the difference.

I have blogged before about my 35-year struggle with internet pornography. I will never be one to hide my sin, but I will be one to credit Jesus for my triumphs over it. I didn’t walk away from homosexuality more than 15 years ago, because I have great willpower. All the glory and credit for that walk goes to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I demonstrated a willingness to move toward God and away from sin. In turn, God etched a path in the rock for me.   I had to decide to follow God, one difficult decision at a time. The little failures that God allowed, taught me lessons to avoid big failures later on. The world looks at our failures through a magnifying glass. God looks at them through the blood of Jesus.

           Surrender to Jesus. It really is the difference between life and death. The world has plenty of medications to offer and every one of them will keep you sick. Heaven has but one prescription for what ails you and He works every time.

One Yes at a Time

As a young man struggling with gay attractions, there were days I prayed for God to take them away. There were days I felt hopeless for a life apart from them. I gave up on God. He never gave up on me. For that, I am grateful.  God helped me walk away from the sin of my gay life and gave me a new life.  He was only able to do that when I acknowledged my sinful decisions and surrendered to Him. I want the same kind of freedom for anyone stuck between the opinion of the world and the truth of God, regarding homosexuality.  With God all things are possible.  Here is a small portion of my story.  

Picture it. Halloween 1998, I was roaming New Orleans dressed as one of the drag queens from Priscilla Queen of the Desert. God wasn't even a blip on my radar. Many a night prior to this I had wandered around New Orleans drunk and searching. Little did I know, but this evening’s jaunt was to be my swan song in the gay community. Over the next two months, I would make life changing decisions, as my heart grew heavy and my wallet thin.

My father and I were talking more. My mom was growing ill. I promised her I would return home, if she needed me. I had devolved into a completely self serving person and used my mom’s health as an excuse to leave my crazy life behind. During those two months I had been date raped by a guy, broke up with him and began dating his best friend, Scott. Scott was the last guy I dated. It lasted a mere two weeks, serving as a last ditch effort to make the gay life work for me. I was starved for love and affection. I chased off all Scott’s friends in an attempt to have him all to myself. Eventually, Scott broke up with me. I accepted my dad's fervent invitation to return home and "regroup". Why would I return home? Returning home to my hometown was the best and worst thing I could do; it wreaked of failure. God had initiated a chain of events that I couldn’t derail. I was desperate for change of any kind; lost and utterly hopeless.

1998 was drawing to a close. So was my 10 year run as a gay man. My flesh was not happy. I packed up everything I owned and drove from Mississippi to Oklahoma. I had one last hoorah with an ex-boyfriend in Texas before finishing the journey home. A long, lonely chapter was ending. I was abandoning everything to do the right thing. The right thing? I didn't have a fat clue what the right thing was.

My family was the same as I had left them 10 years prior. My mom was still suffering from the ravages of bipolar disorder. My dad was still an absent workaholic. God was silent. Still. For two months I was addicted to the most depraved forms of internet porn, while simultaneously attending church and working 50 hours a week as a truck driver. When God spoke again, it was to the point. He asked me if I was finished with porn and ready to start the business of living out my calling. Life had become exhausting. I gave God one more yes and prayed, "I have tried to make my life work for ten years God. I have tried to be gay no matter what You threw at me. I can't make this gay life work. I don't know how You are going to make it work, but I am giving you the reins of my life Lord. You have complete control. Let's see what You can do."

That was all the invitation God needed. My life changed, when I gave God full access. As you read this, please know that I stand before you as a man of much experience. Translation, a man who has done many wrong things on the way to the right thing. A man whose God never gives up, even when the man does. Jesus Christ is the only reason that any of my words have any influence. I know that many of you stand on the verge of something great. 20 years ago I stood in the very same spot. May I whisper to you a simple encouragement:

"There is Hope. Do not give up. The struggle out of bondage and into the arms of Jesus is worth it."

That journey out of gay life began simply enough. I never made a specific plan not to be gay or not to have sex with guys ever again. I concentrated on serving Jesus one day, then another. Working to rebuild trust that had been shattered by so many men. After a few short months away from bars and guys, God had worked a miracle. He had slowly becoming my one and only. My faith was growing. God was loosening my dependence on all things gay.

What is it that God is asking you to do? What is he saying to "Get rid of"? Is He asking you to stop talking to an old boyfriend? Is He encouraging you to close certain doors to your past? Change your phone number? Delete your Facebook "romances"? Is He asking you to clear space for Him in your busy, mixed up life?

More importantly, are you listening?

I said "Yes" to God once and continually find ways to say "Yes" daily. The time to act is now. God constructs miracles, one "Yes" at a time.

Eyes on Your Own Ballot

Earlier today a young man that I mentored sent me a link to an unsettling, but not surprising blog post. Apparently, it came out that Randy Thomas, the former Vice President of Exodus International, well, “Came Out”.   My friend was emotional. To be honest, it upset me for a millisecond and then I went back to reading my daily devotion. As the day wore on, I felt no need to write an impassioned blog response, adding fuel to a fire that was smoldering at best. While some may see this a great opportunity to dialogue about the woes of gay Christianity, I felt like God was simply saying, tell them about my Son Jesus and what He did for you; about His plan of redemption and mercy for humanity. Don’t trouble yourself with the people who have ultimately rejected God’s plan laid out in the scriptures. That last line wasn’t a dig at anyone. We either say, Yes to Jesus and follow God’s plan for our lives, or we allow sin of any kind to gain a foothold in our life and reject God’s plan by making Jesus a contributor to our plan instead of the Savior of our life. First off, let me just say that Jesus Christ is still working on me. I’m terrible with finances, I drink too much soda and I used to secretly take pictures of larger people at Golden Corral while they weren’t looking. I’m a work in progress, but I fully admit there are areas where I need work. I don’t sit back and try to convince anyone that they should accept and celebrate my faults.

For example, take the area of my sexual brokenness. I lived as a gay man in my mind a lot longer than the actual ten years I lived as a gay man after coming out. I tried to convince everyone that I was “born gay” and then that I was a “gay Christian”. I couldn’t explain my same sex attractions away, so I tried to convince people that God had created me gay. Why?

I felt my same sex attractions deeply, down to my very core.

Thank God there was nobody reinterpreting the bible to validate homosexuality back then. Satan is using so many people as mouthpieces today in an effort to twist scripture and legitimize homosexuality. I knew the bible spoke out against homosexuality and that the only thing supporting my decision to be gay was the aforementioned, “deep-seated” feelings of unknown origin. In my thought life, “they just were there”. This led to the belief that I had no choice, I just had to build a life around them, because they weren’t going away.

I eventually walked away from my gay life. Why would I walk away now when I couldn’t bring myself to walk away before? Had my feelings changed? Did God appear me to in a cloud or a bright light on the highway? No and no. God simply allowed my gay life to lead me to the dead end where it will eventually lead everyone.   Though my feelings had not changed, every ounce of belief that I could be fulfilled and happy as a gay man was gone. True, there was nothing that could separate me from the love of God, but God never placed His blessing on the gay life I was leading. It was outside of His will for my sexuality and the whole of His creation. The grace and mercy of God was that He kept His protective hand on me as I defiantly lived a life that screamed, “NO GOD”, until I was ready to return to Him humbly whispering, “Yes God.”

Every day of my life as a Christian, Jesus gives me the choice to choose life or death. He encourages me to choose life, but He gives me the option to choose death if I want to, it’s the beauty and the curse of Free Will. The choice seems like a no brainer to all those folks out there with minor struggles, but satan has honed his skills since his first act of deception in the garden. He has managed to cloud the choice between life and death by disguising death as a better, more palatable version of “life”. Its troubling to see anyone choose death, but no man who has ever spent time at the altar of an Exodus conference ever walks back into homosexuality easily. They deserve our prayers, but not our judgment or approval. Jesus suffered and endured the pain and anguish of the cross so we could have a choice to wholeheartedly follow God’s will or allow the cares of this world and the allure of sin to cause us to reject His will. Manage your own decision well before ever casting a vote in someone else’s election.

My relationship with Jesus is where my heart rises and falls every day. There will always be temptations to return to the places I was comfortable, no matter what, but I rest assured that temptation is not sin nor does it define my sexual preference or identity. In Christ there will always be a choice as well. The bible I read, speaks of redemption from every manner of sexual sin, including homosexuality. It says that God has a purpose and a plan for man and satan screwed that all up. It says that Jesus Christ came to earth, was crucified and was resurrected from the dead so that you and I can have life and have it more abundantly.

To me that says that I can choose not to live a life forever looking through the viewfinder of homosexuality. All sinful, sexual practices in the bible are still categorized together, because they are all outside the only God ordained sexual expression, which is between a married man and woman. Homosexuality has only been separated out, because it has one heck of a public relations team and thousands of testimonials from “satisfied” customers.

It is not God’s will that anyone live a life based on homosexuality or any other sinful practice. We have the choice to surrender all the broken, sinful parts of our lives to God. He will show each of us the path He has chosen for us to follow based on the bible, or we can choose to follow a path and a god of our own design based on thoughts, feelings and flawed human reason.

Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…”

A Fawn. A Random Butterfly. New path.

The young man, Joshua, about whom this post was written, has read it and signed off on it's content.  As my old pastor and friend, Joe Saragusa, used to say, the most important thing is "doing life together."  I couldn't agree more.  This post is a little longer than my other blogs, but I believe you'll find it well worth the read.  As always, please keep me, Joshua and our other guys in prayer.  We are constantly under attack from satan and those who would sequester the truth of the gospel.  Enjoy! Last night around 4 am, I covertly sneaked out the back door of the house. There was no plan to secretly wreak havoc on the neighborhood. I just didn’t want to wake the roomies with a clackety clack garage door a squeaky front door. By the way, it was the Holy Spirit’s idea. For an hour, I walked the neighborhood and prayed. I returned around 5 am, finally ready for bed. This must have been what it was like for Adam to walk in the garden with God. Recklessly abandoned in God’s presence. It was cool, quiet and peaceful. Precious times these are to me. I need them more often. One of my forever friends, Kathy, exhorted me that I am a missionary now. It is absolutely my job to pray consistently and get alone with God.

Yesterday, I was led to pray after seeing a friend’s Facebook post. Now it wasn’t horrible, but satan has a way of spinning things out of control, kind of like the Kardashians or a Democratically controlled senate. What matters most is that my friend, Joshua, undeniably loves Jesus, but he’s still kind of dabbling in worldly things. A wave of palpable sadness and confusion washed over me as I read his post. I prayed, surrendering that feeling to God. Prayer opened my heart to a desire to get alone with God ASAP. Thus my 4 am stroll, 12 hours later. Yes, my day was that busy. As I walked, I prayed over many guys; three specifically. I don’t know about you, but I fight trusting that God knows what He is doing in other people’s lives, especially when I see them headed down destructive paths. I gotta remember; Faith in the Father, not Faith in the Faltering.

A few months ago, I realized that God was orchestrating a shift. The delicate bubble I had strategically constructed around my ministry was dying a slow and painful, perhaps necessary death. It was my first text from Joshua that alerted me to God’s shenanigans. In our first correspondence, He informed me that he loved Jesus, but he wasn’t interested in walking out of homosexuality just yet. In the past I would have bristled a bit in my mind, listened graciously and began the strategic process of furthering my well-meaning agenda in his life. My initial ‘crisis response’ was averted by a whisper from the Holy Spirit.

At our first meeting, I sat and listened to Joshua’s amazing story. On our walk from the restaurant where we’d had lunch, to a coffee shop, the Holy Spirit told me to be open to learning from him. Holy Ghost say what? I was stricken with acute and immediate mental paralysis. Learn from him? What could I possibly learn from him? He was lost, right? He wasn’t interested in following the same chaste path as me. Talk about a train wreck in the brainwork. What on earth would I have to learn from him?

5 hours later, I was overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit at that meeting. It was like God installed a fiber optic cable between my brain and His heart. I was also overwhelmed at the presence of the Holy Spirit in Joshua’s life and the level of communication he had with our Father. As the minutes ticked by, it was increasingly evident, that God was writing an amazing love letter to Joshua.

My emotional, roller coaster ride with Joshua continues. It’s a new level of interaction for me. We have some very honest dialogue. I feel challenged by him. I have apologized a million times and look forward to a million more. I am indeed, learning from him as the Holy Spirit said I would. My core beliefs haven’t changed, but I am learning, through Joshua, how to better love the men and women of the gay community.

The foundations of my relationship with Joshua were shaky in the beginning. There were times I’d think he was finished talking with me for good. There were times I felt I was through talking with him for good.   God always encouraged me to maintain the connection. Eventually, Joshua needed a new place to live; a place of refuge. I always refer to my house as “a place of refuge”, but there was no way I could let someone stay there who was actively gay.   We live according to a strict set of rules. He didn’t want to live under those rules. I found myself being ‘that Christian’. I said something to the effect of,

“That’s a tough situation. I will pray that you. You can’t come live with me, but I’ll help you find another place., I will pray for you.”

It took a few days for me to realize just how self-preserving and pompous those words were. My words were completely blocking a move of God and putting Him in the box of my intellect, prejudice and fear. As the words dripped from my lips, my stomach soured a little. I had pledged my life in service to Jesus first and in service to others second, to love them as myself, but…

“Was there anything more that I could do?”

The question danced about on the surface of my brain, like a random butterfly amongst the flowers, defying capture, inspiring wonder. It was all that God needed for a new journey began.

A few days later, Joshua began texting a slew of angry and sad texts tinged with frustration and angst. He said that he felt like God was saying the answer to his problems was to come and live at my house. As I read his texts from the “ivory tower” of my heart, I knew that he wasn’t truly surrendering to God, but instead succumbing to the pressures of life. I read them and began a quiet celebration broke out in my head. God had finally brought Him to the end of himself, but something wasn’t right. I didn’t feel 100% okay with the circumstances. The Holy Spirit led me to question my attitude. Honest dialogue broke out again between Joshua and I. In his honesty, he carefully laid a few more tender pieces of his heart on the table. Even though I had no idea what to do, I knew the Holy Spirit was calling me to listen and be present. No longer could I blindly say, ‘I’d love to help’, to the safe people my choosing. God was calling me to put actions to my words. I was scared to death.

I met Joshua for lunch. I shared my “house rules” with him. As I shared the rules and cost of rent with him, I saw his countenance fill with more anger and frustration. I wasn’t helping him. I was doing more damage; subjecting him to emotion and spiritual castration. It was almost as if I was saying, “Ha, Ha! I have a house and you don’t. Jump through these flaming hoops and recite this pledge and we’ll see what we can do.” Don’t get me wrong. Rules have a place, but when we put a price on what God freely offers, we commercialize the gospel and drain it of its power. Our actions keep those who desperately need God distanced from His true heart for them. It’s like telling a critically wounded patient to wait outside the emergency room until their wounds have healed.

The sermon at church the next day was all about forgiveness and coming to the Father freely. The Holy Spirit asked me that day,

“How many hoops did I ask you to jump through before you came to live “in my house”? ((Insert Serial Gut Punching Sequence…HERE!))

He was right. I wasn’t helping Joshua draw closer to Jesus. I was piling obstacles in his path and doubling the weight of his burden. With tears flowing down my cheeks I repented of what I had done to this young man. I stayed in a spirit of prayer that entire day. That afternoon, I began the process of tweaking the rules to keep the guys already in the house safe, while providing a place of refuge for another one of God’s broken sons.

Later that night, my roommate and I humbled ourselves before Joshua, who was hurting and broken. We washed his feet and hands. We anointed him with oil. We granted him forgiveness and repented on behalf of Christians who have hurt him. Ultimately, we prayed over him and welcomed him in as our brother. A week later, he moved in and the bubble of self-protection that I, not God had tried to sustain ceremoniously burst. To say the least, I am like a newborn deer in this new place with God; wobbly, uncertain but staying close.

It hasn’t been an easy walk. Not because Joshua is bad, but because it’s a new journey for me. Joshua has actually made the transition fairly easy. God speaks pretty clearly to me regarding Joshua. One morning, I awoke to God saying, “He’s not yours. He’s mine.” I would find out later that this young man’s parents had prayed those same words over him when He was younger, “He’s not ours God, He’s Yours.” Wha What? I told you, FIBER OPTIC connection.

I am both encouraged and challenged by my relationship with Joshua and his knowledge and love for the Lord. When I opened Big Fish ministry 5 years ago, I thought I was simply going to minister to men with unwanted same sex attractions. God knew it was going to be so much more than that. I just missed that memo. What it boils down to is simply this: trusting God, being obedient and having a heart for people.  God can be trusted to lead the way and fill in the blanks.

Not Who I Was. He is the Great I Am

scripture hallway

It was fall of 1993. I was loading up my shiny, red S-15 pickup truck and moving to Galveston. It was Phase 2 of my plan to become a world famous killer whale trainer. Phase 1 consisted of a 3-week tropical marine biology class in The Bahamas and a separate overnight stay in Paris…Texas that is. I was leaving my home in Barnsdall, Oklahoma and finally pursuing a Marine Bio degree. When that truck drove out of my parent’s driveway for the last time, it was packed with a comfy, college dorm chair, sentimental, knick-knack crap and equal parts bitterness and rebellion. In the driver’s seat was an angry, hurting 22-year old boy. That boy, was me. There were many reasons I was headed to Texas: college, a psycho ex-boyfriend, Shamu and to run away from who I had been for the last 16 years. I also hoped that God wouldn’t pursue me that far south of the bible belt.The night before I left, I packed every, last, damn thing I owned into that little, red truck. I resented my parents so much that I slept on a comforter in the middle of the living room floor, as one last act of defiance. My mom wasn’t ready for me to move that far from home. Her pain was palpable. I sensed it before one tear dared to stain her cheek. She came to me that night to wish me good night. I had already begun to close my heart off to her emotionally. After years of torturing emotional incest by my mother, this cold, callous reaction was simply a defense mechanism. That night, however, she came to me broken, wounded and sincere. It was that night I think her “mother’s” heart, shattered into a thousand icy shards. It was a turning point for both of us. Her words were simple and true. “You don’t have to go,” she said. “I don’t care if you are sick,” she continued, “I don’t care if you are dying. I don’t care if you are gay. You don’t have to go.” “I don’t care if you are gay”. The words are still just as haunting today.

She knew? SHE KNEW! She knew.

Paralyzed by fear, I just stood there. I looked away. I couldn’t let her see further inside. Besides, my eyes were as cold and dead as my heart. I said nothing, but left her alone to face the echoes of her pain in silence. Nothing was going to change my mind. I was tired of hurting, tired of not fitting in and tired of all the lies. Texas was my answer. Texas was going to “fix” me. At some point in life, I drew comfort from her confessions. Yet, there was nothing she could have said to reach me that day. My feet were firmly planted in Oklahoma, but my heart was already in Texas. My mom knew that many of the reasons I was leaving would fall under the heading, ‘Escape’. I had mistakenly filed them all under “Freedom’. It didn’t matter. At 9 that next morning, I would be fully committed to whatever brand of heaven or hell lay before me. That self proclaimed journey into ‘Freedom’ led me down the road to periodic HIV tests, many a drunken stupor and blackout and eventually a heart so broken and deceived that it led to a night of prostitution. The most incredible thing wasn’t that I Survived my self-prescribed journey into freedom. The most incredible thing was The Reason that I survived it.

Jesus Christ was with me the entire time.

From the moment I set foot in Galveston, God was with me. The first guy I dated was a Baptist minister’s son. What did we discuss on our first date? Christianity and homosexuality. This is what happens when God has a call on your life. He won’t frickin’ leave you alone. God was there. Even when I thought He wasn’t. Even when I hoped He wasn’t. Even after I told him to ‘F’ off, because I was going to be gay no matter what. Even then, He never left me, never abandoned me. Years later, I would read the following passage in the Bible, “Where can I go from Your Spirit?
 Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me and Your right hand shall hold me.” Psalm 139:7-10. The author was expressing the realization that there is literally nowhere we can go to be to away from God. While I wasn’t so keen on God seeing everything I had done, I couldn’t deny that life with God was like one great, big, spiritual “Where’s Waldo” adventure. My story of redemption through Jesus Christ was one of wooing and chasing, doting and pursuing. I rejected Jesus for so many years. Yet He pursued me. I blamed Him for all my pain. Yet He continuously forgave me. I built a wall around my heart. I pushed people away. I lived in the rancid isolation of sexual brokenness that so many in today’s gay community call “Freedom”. I can’t remember many days when I called out to God, but He never stopped calling to me. I have every reason to daily hang my head in shame, for the porn that I have seen, the sex I have had and the life that I lived. However, the word of God says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (Jesus). I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. What a reason to hold my head high and celebrate. It’s not my any act or effort of my, but by the power of Jesus Christ to save me, cleanse me and forgive me. I am no longer defined by the sins of my past. You can choose to no longer be defined by your brokenness, but instead by the One who fixes the broken. It took me more than ten years to surrender most of my broken pieces to Jesus. Yet it took Him less than a millisecond to say “Welcome Home”. As a boy who had always looked for a place to belong, those words fell like rain in the desert of my isolation. Jesus is still performing rescue missions little brothers. It matters not what you’ve done or are doing. What matters most, is saying Yes to Jesus. The bible says that those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. It’s time; to end one journey and start another. The same Jesus Christ, who took those first steps with you into sexual sin and brokenness, is waiting at the next exit with cheers and celebration.

“Let the children come to me…for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14