Be in Peace

As I continue to read through Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel, I can't help but find myself in a new, profound place in my relationship with God. As Manning asserts, the true nature of the gospel is forgiveness then repentance instead of the commonly accepted repentance and then forgiveness. While I have always understood that Jesus came for the broken - interceding for the adulterous woman, sharing meals with sinners - I have never owned the fact that Christ wants to walk beside me in the most shameful moments of my life.

While I am not necessarily making the best decisions in my life all the time, I am strangely at peace, understanding that for the first time, I am actually engaging God in this struggle. I'm not simply living a Christian life, then pushing God away while I sin. I'm bringing God into the entire picture of who I am.

Like Manning, I have recently become even more repulsed by the "Christianese" in our society. I am so grateful for well-meaning people that want to live upright lives. But Gandhi's haunting words, "I like your Christ but I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christians," ring clear with so many Christians that are so determined to live by the rules that they miss the point. They build walls up so they never confront the hardest parts of their lives, allowing damp, moist darkness to grow the once small problem into huge infections that eventually erode the wall, doing so much damage than the original issue.

Jimmy Needham, in his album Not Without Love, states:

I tried Lord
I tried Lord
I tried hard to be Your good little boy
Chin up, head high
All zeal and no joy
Thinking all my good deeds could please Jesus
Boy, was I wrong
Though I knew the right songs, all my cymbals and gongs played the melodies wrong
And it wasn’t long ‘til I saw my disease
A life spent wanting to please
On hands and knees
To make right, to appease
God help me please
This can’t be Christianity, it can’t be
The whole thing’s like insanity

I guess the reason that I am writing all this is to let you all know that I am in peace, and I'm so grateful for that. While I am certain that the experimentation, the porn star heartbreak, the cavalier and irresponsible sexual activity were all damaging to myself and hurtful to the Lord, I can't help but say that I'm now glad that these experiences have brought me to the place where I have a fuller understanding of my eternal need of His lasting grace. While I was once the person that Jimmy Needham describes - someone who thought that all the right actions could actually make up for my sin - I am now realizing more and more that the Lord wants to be a part of my hurt; he wants to walk beside me as I am stumbling, not just when I am standing tall. He wants to intimately engage me in the most proud and the most shameful parts of my life. He wants all of me.

Grateful for Grace

Recently I've been reading Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel. I have been struck by Manning's insight within these pages. He cries out for Christians to wake up and remember what Christianity is all about. Instead of being confined to laws of religiosity and "Christianese," Manning pleas for Christ-followers to remember what the true call of Christ's life was - the irrevocable grace extended on the cross.

As I am wrestling with issues within my life, most prominently my SSA, I can't help but be absolutely astonished by the raw power of this quote in Manning's book:

“To be alive is to be broken. And to be broken is to stand in need of grace. Honesty keeps us in touch with our neediness and the truth that we are saved sinners. There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.”

Frustrated

In the midst of a struggle of sexual temptations of the present, the most frustrating aspect of dealing with same-sex attractions is the daunting question of the future. Nothing in my life makes me want to pull my hair out more than this frustrating, disheartening, and utterly endless issue.

Two girls called and professed their undying, passionate feelings for me tonight. One was a friend that I have never felt anything for. The other - a driven, compassionate, big-picture thinking, pageant beauty - is someone that I felt like I could have feelings for. But as both of them confessed to me their feelings, I couldn't help but weep inside. Not only does the thought of being emotionally intimate with a woman do nothing for me, but I am finding that my sexual attraction toward women continues to dwindle. What was once an attraction like all (or at least a majority) of young boys has now turned into a vacuum with only attractions toward men.

What am I to do? An eligible bachelor who has a secure job and how is a 'good' Christian man, I am expected by many to take a serious look at settling down. Not only does my personality not want to settle down - desiring a job that travels, wanting to move all over the world, wanting to not being tied to anything - my desire to be with a woman is continuing to shrink.

Yes, I want to marry. But, is that simply to fulfill cultural expectations?
Yes, I want a family. But what does a 'family' look like? Is it confined only to marriage with biological children?
Yes, I want intimacy and a companion. But what does that look like for someone who is unable to truly give a woman what she deserves.

Like I said in my last post, I refuse to, for the sake of being 'normal', deprive a woman of the true love that she is entitled. Not only would I be miserable living a 'lie,' but I would also be actively contributing to someone else's pain, not being able to provide the relationship needed in a marriage.

So frustrating, as I am beginning to feel the desire of intimacy with another man. It's disgusting to think about, but at the same time seems so natural. What does that mean? I have always dismissed the question by gay proponents, "If it's love, then how could it be bad." Of course, feeling good about anything that is unhealthy seems good at the onset but is completely wrong. I have always felt like feeling a well-intentioned, misguided (natural desire for a deep connection, but inappropriate manifestation into eroticism) attraction to men was similar to other personal disorders, etc........a completely legitimate need coming to fruition in a very unhealthy and skewed way.

But I am now finding myself thinking about - not embracing - intimacy with another man and how God plays into that. I am exploring what I truly think, not just the standard line used by churches. What does God really say about these things? I think the Bible is clear. But how does that reconcile with the most intimate parts of my being?

I wonder if there is any struggle that penetrates so deeply into the human soul. To be in constant, volatile turmoil in the innermost parts of a person is fatiguing. It is tiring, which is why I think many people give in eventually to their ssa. Unfortunately that also comes with people walking away from their faith. I'd like to think that no matter what, I understand the Lord's faithfulness and intentional action in my life over the course of my 21 years on this planet. I'd like to think that I'd never forget how good he has been to me.