Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. Deuteronomy 30:6
Questioning
Regularly, through my growing up years then into my adult years I prayed to God and asked Him in the form of a statement, “Please take these feelings ways from me?” It was extremely difficult for me when time after time nothing would change within me, except the pain of disappointment would grow and grow.
I have regularly heard through my 30 years of counseling individuals with same sex attraction (SSA) the same question. It pains me to hear His beloved caught in the obsession of this re-questioning.
Now being on the other side of that questioning I believe I may give a response.
I began this journey pursuing Jesus obediently and a posture of receiving from Him and the outcome has been vastly greater than I had ever imagined. Nevertheless, I still experience difficulty at times verbalizing my ‘how-to’ process of obtaining a heterosexual identity, feelings and behavior. This blog, I hope will present tools to aid in building bridges to wholeness.
To Every Question, There is an Answer
When I was younger I thought that if just this one part of me (the past that was attracted to the same sex) would go away everything would be perfect. I hear that from the men and women that come to Prodigal Ministries (PM) today. I have come to realize that change from homosexuality is not just the removal of SSA. The removal of SSA does not make one heterosexual.
Movement from homosexuality is not, ‘take this one thing away.’ It is the transformation of one’s entire being. The transformation of one’s character, nature, thinking, emotions, identity, behaviors, effects of the past, goals for the future, will, ALL relationships and more.
Does God answer the request/statement, “Take this away from me.” YES! But, not as one may have thought. The answer is surrendering all parts of one’s entire being unto Jesus and not just the ‘part’ with the homosexual attractions.
Change brings change.
To have homosexual attractions ‘taken away*’ one’s whole person must shift. Change is consecrating all the parts of one’s self through the Refiner’s Fire and invoking the Sanctifier to sanctify all parts of self.
ALL
The following may be a bias statement (it is). I don’t know of any other sin/wounding that so dominates one’s entire being as homosexuality. To turn (repent) from homosexuality means a shift in all the ways (and more) I mentioned earlier. So, courageous ones who are pursuing sexual purity and relational wholeness, take heart! It is a big undertaking. One only you can do with the Big Guy!
Take heart Pastors, parents and the like you are right, this is a very difficult issue. The Big Guy is there for you too!
Now to make the preceding statement unbias I say this, and please note this homosexual struggler: All Christians are called to the same shift in all parts of their being. Jesus invites us all to surrender all the parts of our being for His transformation. He desires to be Lord of all the parts of us. Take heart courageous overcomer you are no different from any other Christian called to divine submission. We are all challenged with parts of our selves that we just want ‘to be taken away’. But know that Jesus is doing a work with the whole of you.
* While noting that temptations towards old patterns are a part of the Christian-human journey and so, to some extent, new creations in Christ may in some way struggle with the old nature. (Galatians 5:17)