Obedience Over Orientation

Save Me, a newly released movie about God and homosexuality, hits upon some of life’s toughest questions as it hits the theatres. Mark, the main character, is a homosexual with sexual and alcohol addictions who winds up at an “ex-gay ministry” called the Genesis House. While Marks finds compassion, hope, sobriety, self-respect and God there, he does not find a “cure” for his same-sex attraction.

No doubt some of the questions raised in this movie are ones that plagued me as a young person when I began dealing with my own “sexual orientation”. My attractions seemed fixed, but my understanding wasn’t.  If my temptations and fantasies were any indication of my seemingly fixed orientation, then I was gay.  While I experienced crushes on girls on an emotional level the almost emotionally cannibalistic attraction I had for guys also fully encompassed me physically and sexually. What’s the problem, right?   Today those feelings are called natural, legitimate, god-given.  And the conflict is blamed on intolerant and antiquated religious views that our culture is daily working to obliterate.  In the 1980’s that wasn’t the case; homosexuality wasn’t polite company.  We were still doing everything in our power as pre-gays and lesbians to appear typical and that meant living in the closet.  That cultural reality coupled with the innate conflict that somewhere at the core of who I was — being gay was wholly and unalterably inconsistent with my very being.  Any fantasy or action was followed by tremendous fear of retaliation from a just God, which was followed by tremendous guilt and confusion.

 I tried to stop the feelings.  I tried not to give into the temptations.  I prayed constantly for healing and to be straight.  I did this for years.  To no avail.  It seemed I was first, last and always, gay.  How could this have happened?  Why me?  How would I reconcile this with my faith and with a just God?  I couldn’t.  How would I change the reality of those feelings and the orientation that I hadn’t asked for?  I wouldn’t.

At 19, I went to a local Exodus International Member Ministry for help in dealing with my unwanted feelings of same sex attraction. Not too long after, I remember going out to dinner with friends from my support group. While out, I ran into a group of my gay friends and one of them said to me, “Are you out with your straight-wanna-be friends tonight?”  I laughed and blushed on the outside, but I was crushed on the inside and wondered, Will this alternative really work? Should it even be tried?  What if I fail and then my old friends want nothing to do with me either?  Was I just gay and sin or not in need of being true to who I was?  Should I just be gay and ask for forgiveness daily for the rest of my life?  Was celibacy the answer — realize I’m gay and have all the fun without all the sex?  Could I call that Diet Homosexuality?

A little misguided at first, I stayed on the “road to recovery” from homosexuality.  I most wanted to be normal and acceptable, I think, but that misrepresentation of the point served to help me stay in the game.  While the pressure of a church culture that was intolerant of people is a reality that I am happy is changing today in lieu of a healthier acceptance of people and understanding that all sin is ugly, not just the ones we don’t struggle with, that pressure and intolerance served to keep me from truly embracing a gay identity. I was never told heterosexuality was the answer, but I sure did believe that it was.  Success for this boy, the youngest of 6 and uncle of 23, was a wife and kids.  However, along the way I came to realize that heterosexuality was not the opposite of homosexuality---holiness is---and that being straight wasn’t THE answer and might never be a reality.  I also learned that heterosexual wasn’t a label or a state of being more than it was God’s creative intent for the appropriate sexual expression of His creation.  It was the only way His creation could reflect His image sexually.

During this time of understanding God’s plan for me, seeking Him for my very survival and trusting Him with my every sexual urge and impulse, I really began thinking how my future, beliefs and sexual sobriety would be impacted if my feelings never changed.  Talk about a dilemma — a crisis of faith and a time of grieving over what might never be.  I might never get to express myself in the way that felt natural.  I might never feel the way I believe I was created to feel.  Moreover, what if I find a member of the opposite sex that I want to feel sexually attracted to and can’t or find a man that I am sexually drawn to and can’t express it?  ARGH!

It was during this season of great angst that the Lord spoke clearest to me.  He knew that I needed some real direction.  Maybe God spoke because of that and maybe He spoke because, like Jacob, I grabbed on and refused to let go until He spoke. Jacob held on for a blessing; I just wanted understanding hoping it would bring relief.  What I came to understand and know during that time, though, has served me well for a decade and a half now. God spoke to me through the question of a friend who asked me, “What do you think God is more interested in, your obedience or your happiness?”  It’s funny to me now, 15 years later that such a question was ever so puzzling to me, but it was.  My immediate thought and answer was that God wants me to be happy. Of course, He wants us to be happy, my friend shared, but God cares most that we are obedient. And as another friend of mine who has also been through a similar journey, Sy Rogers , often says, “Obedience will never hurt you like disobedience always will.”

That night was pivotal for me.  For the first time ever I knew what was necessary.  The question for me was no longer, “What do I do?”, but rather, “How do I do it?”  Not too long after that night a new and increasingly dear friend challenged me on the fact that I had allowed a bout of depression to keep me out of work for three days straight.  Looking for compassion from her I got a firm kick in the seat.  She said, “Get off your butt and go to work tomorrow. You need to start going on what you know and stop living by how you feel.”  That went hand in hand with what my friend had said earlier. Being obedient was what I knew to be right and pursuing happiness first was allowing my feelings to be the motivating/deciding factor in my life.  Wow.  All those years of getting puzzle pieces that didn’t fit together, I was finally getting ones that connected.

This was the beginning of the flood of insight that the Lord began to give me and still gives me today.  It was almost like I’d lived in a desert my whole life, but there was this wall in the middle of the desert that I knew was there, but never seemed to investigate. Come to find out the wall was a damn and the desert a river basin.  Further investigation led to cracks in the damn which led to the flood that restored this river basin to its original intended state.  It’s amazing to think about, but God always wanted me to investigate the wall and to discover that He wasn’t desirous of keeping me in the dark. He wanted me to know Him and to reveal Himself to me.  I won’t ever comprehend it all in this life, but the floodgates were opened and I get more and more of His truth and grace every day.

While I have sought and found some tremendous insights on the Lord related to my struggle with homosexuality that has been but a minute part of what He has imparted.  My struggle with homosexuality was a symptom of my humanity and my brokenness and as He has renewed my mind, transformed my beliefs and perspective that struggle has become something that has greatly diminished and the remainder is the same reminder we all have to go to the Cross every day for the ability to live.

So, you think you have a homosexual orientation?  You think you are living in conflict with that and your faith and beliefs?  Wondering if that orientation will ever be fixed, go away or change to a heterosexual one? 

I can’t guarantee that your ‘feelings/temptations/attractions’ will go away or even subside.  I have lived at varying spectrums of this reality and even go through seasons still that are more difficult than others, but I have found that even amidst struggle a life of obedience is absolutely possible. The spiritually trying seasons are actually the ones that I look forward to these day — like an athlete looks forward to the beginning of training for competition. They are the seasons where you have to work the hardest to get in shape, but when prepared and executed well yields the best results.  It is in these demanding periods of time that the Lord beckons me to come to Him over the counterfeit pleasures that vie for my attentions and affections.  Denying them leads to their death and to living a freer and happier life.

For me, I did experience some shifting in what some might call orientation or attraction.  I got married in 1998 and I love my wife with all that I am.  I am attracted to her in every way and I love every part of our relationship together.  Like any relationship, ours takes work.  We are purposeful about loving one another, communicating with one another and understanding one another.  These things lead to a bond that anyone would be hard pressed to break.  But, as strong as our foundation and life together is, it alone cannot keep me from straying—or her for that matter. Our love is strong, but it is human and imperfect without the Lord at the center.  Loving and marrying my wife didn’t solidify my heterosexuality or put an end to the possibility that I could be tempted.  If anything our relationship has only served to push me to pursue Christ more vigorously. I know the devil would love for our marriage to end and for our kids’ lives to be shattered as a result.  Like my ministry role, my marriage makes me more of a target for the Enemy and for my human enemies.  So, I stay grounded and honest and realistic. I will struggle because I am human and there isn’t any cure for that in this life.

Comments

[Randy]

I have heard your story a million times but I appreciate it every time. I think tying in your experience through a comparison/contrast type of post is very helpful for those seeking answers. It's good to have something substantive to offer from a personal perspective as they make decisions for their life.

[Cheryl]

And because you're ministry role and marriage make you more of a target of the enemy, it is my commitment to you to claim the power of a Holy God in defense of you and yours through prayer. That you would rest safely seated on the Throne with our Living, Loving, Lord, while His feet rest on a footstool of enemies.

[Eileen Rife]

Thank you, Alan, for that testimony. I'm so thankful that we all stand at the foot of the Cross as equals, no sin greater than another. It has taken me a lifetime so far, and I'm 53, to realize that Christ is my life, my very survival. Without His grace, I fall every time. It has also dawned on me with much clearer focus lately that my role is not to feel good but to bring Him glory! That takes much of the pressure off trying to manage my fluctuating emotions. Often when I set my sites on the higher goal of honoring Him, the emotions follow. It's actually what I've heard all my life: faith first, then feelings, but as is so often the case, the Lord had to reveal that to me in a fresh way.

Again, thanks for ALL you do to reach out to those who want to be free. Since writing Book Two, Restored Hearts, in my Born for India trilogy, I have gained a deeper appreciation for ministries like yours. My novel deals with an MK who longs to be free from homosexuality.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

[Julie]

I, too, had one of those moments where the question was no longer "What do I do?" but "How do I do it?" I am so glad Exodus was there as God began to answer that latter question for me.

Merry Christmas, Alan! God bless you, your family, and Exodus.

[DavidW]

Alan,

The mind is the great collaborator for acceptance and rejection. It's pretty much it's main focus and drive. That is how it survives, discerns and categorizes.
I am a well adjusted happy gay male with full support and acceptance from family friends and school mates at all times. Having never experienced your type of struggle, I do not know it. Mine is a struggle with becoming in your terms, a gay minister, for fear of literally, death, by going "public" outside my safe family and peers. So my fight to overcome, is different in content, but similar in form. But the basic fear or belief, is death. And the erroneous belief / lie is that I will be persecuted and killed. Though it is a possibility, some part of me thinks it is a given, so it's effects are very powerful as I want to survive, and be happy. I have worked on releasing the belief and now I am at the stage of "just do it" to finish it off. If I have an obedience issue, it is to obey my truth. It seems I always have to "accept" my lies have ruled me, before I can feel the love of the truth and move on.

In my trek, I have learned that every fear has an underlying lie of which we believe whole heartedly. It produces an ongoing drama of whatever subject it entails. I have also found that once the lie is rectified, I feel serenity and a release permanently from the impinging drama. From what you have said, serenity and resolve around your homosexual nature has not been evident. It seems you are destined for a lifetime of sexual struggle, an ongoing drama absent the serenity you seek. Is there possibly an underlying lie yelling out to be addressed and resolved, while at the same time keeping your marriage fully intact, possibly strengthening it? I know with sexually balanced bisexual people who marry, the other half of their sexuality is nicely placed dormant, and does not come up as a "struggle". They are in love and want to be monogamous, so it works well.

I take it that you were steeped in religion which brings up a question; where do you think you would be if you would never had been programmed to believe gayness was an abomination, or if you had never been abused and or taunted in school, or any other experience that demeaned your sexuality? Is your possible lie underlying your sexual fear, potentially also, a fear of death condemnation or retribution, much like mine?

I refer to a very powerful prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Though I do not use the prayer to release the lies beneath my fears, it has great and truthful wisdom in it's structure.
I too will keep working on my self perceived hardship of a mountain, as I see you also do.

Best regards and Merry Christmas

[Jay]

Was celibacy the answer — realize I’m gay and have all the fun without all the sex? Could I call that Diet Homosexuality?

If a person is celibate (which many godly people are, including Randy Thomas), and also realizes that their feelings/temptations/attractions haven't changed or even subsided (as you said they might not in the second-to-last paragraph), then isn't that basically what you're referring to here?

When I've met someone who's called themselves a "gay celibate," that's basically who they are. Someone who is honest about having primarily homosexual feelings while at the same time leading a chaste life. I don't know any who call themselves that who have "all the fun." They don't go to gay bars or anything. They just happen to use the word "gay" to describe themselves. Do you think that's wrong, because honestly, you'd be hard pressed to find much difference between them (or me, for that matter) and unmarried Exodus folks.

[Melinda J]

I loved your line," However, along the way I came to realize that heterosexuality was not the opposite of homosexuality---holiness is-". Brother, we stand side by side with you in the walk toward holiness. Be blessed and know others have taken with you the same road less traveled..

[DavidW]

Regarding: "However, along the way I came to realize that heterosexuality was not the opposite of homosexuality---holiness is-"

I don't mean at all to be disrespectful, but the actual antonyms are seemingly quite different from what you have proposed. Please do comment on this if you feel like I may have overlooked something.

The opposite of holiness(good) and righteous, is unholiness(bad) evil, depraved, immoral, wicked and sinful.

The opposite of sex(the sex act), homo, bi or hetero, is unsexual, asexual or chaste.

Opposite sexual orientations in category, would elude to homo and hetero being opposite.

A sidenote: the biblical clumping of homosexuals with thieves adulterers etc...

As in the case of murderers adulterers thieves and pedophiles, this grouping conspires and seeks to destroy others peace and rob them of their joy through intentional willful acts of evil. Their acts are unholy.
Homosexuals as well as heterosexuals seek to join with others in sexual inclusion, bringing sexual joy to each other through intimate communication.
The sexual intentions of both sexualities are the same, to join in joyful sexual union.
This is a righteous loving and holy act, opposite of unholy intentionally wicked depraved or sinful acts that rob others of peace and joy.

[Nick]

Alan, thanks. I'm sure you've often thought (and shuddered) of where you would be today had you not chosen the path you did.

That's what it all comes down to: a person who struggles with same-sex attraction must decide where they will find the most happiness--as an active homosexual, with all the instability that life offers....or whether they'll choose the lesser traveled path of Christian obedience.

Every holiday season as I'm gathered with my wife, kids, and now grandchildren, I look back with extreme gratefulness at the choice I made more than 30 years ago.

I do not regret it for a moment!

[Jay]

That's what it all comes down to: a person who struggles with same-sex attraction must decide where they will find the most happiness--as an active homosexual, with all the instability that life offers.

Really, Nick? Because for me, this wasn't about happiness, but about serving God. I know a gay couple, actually, that had all the stability and happiness that a straight married couple would have. They had been together over ten years and had been totally faithful to one another, and yet they both converted to Christianity and now are living on their own, single, and struggling, but being faithful to God.

The Christian life is not one of happiness, but of struggle and hardship, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's right. No offense, of course, but I just don't like it when people use the "happiness" argument as a reason to convert. It's about faithfulness, not happiness. Just ask Jeremiah.

[Nick]

Jay, I'm speaking of my experience and that of others I know. My life has indeed been a happy one. Jesus said He came to offer an abundant life....and I've found that true. Certainly there have been some bumps in the road, but there's no way I would describe my life as one of struggle and hardship.

To me, the rewards of the Christian life far outweigh the alternative.

[Jay]

To me, the rewards of the Christian life far outweigh the alternative.

Eternally, yes. In this life, it's not exactly a guarantee. Scripture, and the lives of the saints both in the Bible and throughout history, don't exactly support that view. I'm speaking of my experience and that of others I know. It's been harder being a Christian, and I haven't been as happy. However, I know what I'm doing is right, and that makes up for everything.

I just think that if the tone of the conversation assumes that the active gay person is leading a life of instability and unhappiness, and becoming a Christian will make everything stable and happy, then you're going to exclude people. First, you're going to exclude the active gay people whose lives, though no less sinful, are stable and happy (like the couple I mentioned). Second, you're going to exclude the people who don't find conventional happiness in chastity, but are no less faithful.

Thus, making the conversation less about "happiness" (which is totally subjective anyway) and more about faithfulness (which is not) includes all, and puts our focus on what matters, which is our faithfulness. God doesn't require our happiness (again, see Jeremiah or Job) but our belief and our right actions. Happiness can come, of course, and we all have the hope that it will come at Christ's return, but it's not the reason to convert nor is it the reason to remain faithful. Christ is.

[Nick]

"It's been harder being a Christian, and I haven't been as happy."

That seems to be to be an unusual response, but so be it.

I'm sure God uses many motivations in bringing people to Himself. For me, it was the promise of something better than what I had (and that something better was to be found in a relationship with Him).

We are not all the same, though, and I respect that God has worked differently with you.

God bless you, Jay.

[Jay]

We are not all the same, though, and I respect that God has worked differently with you.

Right. Like I said, I'm not doubting that you're happy or that Christianity has led to greater stability for you. I just think that stability, happiness, etc. aren't the point of Christianity, and if we're going to highlight a reason to believe or obey, those aren't it.

[Nick]

Jay, visited your blog. In fact, I bookmarked it. Good stuff.

Be blessed.

[Jay]

Thanks, Nick. Be blessed as well.

And Mr. Chambers, I really would like a little clarification about the "diet homosexuality" comment. I just would like to know what kind of person you are referring to there, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Like I said, I don't see much difference in a gay celibate (who is celibate for Christian reasons, of course, not simply because they're unlucky in love) and an unmarried Exodus member. I would appreciate the clarification. Thank you.