Sometimes I Feel Like a House

(Note: Seven months have passed since our home burned. Now, just a couple of weeks away from moving into our new home, I've been thinking back to the night of the fire and the thoughts that swirled around in my head like smoke rising from the ashes of all we owned. The post below is adapted from the post that ran in December 2010, a few days after the fire.)

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. -- 11 Cor. 5:1

I have at times in the past skated on very thin ice, life-speaking. I have also been tested by fire and occasionally found lacking. I have been cold and I have been warm and I have been luke . . . as in lukewarm, somewhere in the sad and unsatisfying middle. But this past year, as Christmas closed in, I was at peace, almost overwhelmed by the incredible undeniable truth that wherever and whenever, I am never alone. And never will be.

On a peaceful Saturday night, one week before Christmas, around 10:30 p.m., our house went up in flames. Five hours later, with smoke still rising from the ashes of a few glowing spots set against the dark horizon, we viewed from our rear-view mirror -- as we drove down our street -- the grey piles of decades of memories being sifted by the night's cold wind . . . and we took them with us. Memories.

The charred rafters poked into the night toward the stars like ribs from a skeleton, having surrendered the contents of an attic filled with the scrapbooks and collected "stuff," of college, courtship, marriage, the raising of five children, all the good things sifted and saved from the ups-and-downs of life lived together . . . in a house that is no more. Star Wars toys and baby dolls, baseball cards and baby books, all the "mines" that became one big "ours." The first-owners of the precious things grew up and moved on to other precious things, leaving behind little monuments to the pieces of days that form a history of a family, not completely-told. We have a tendency to bar from the attic the times of heartache and let them dwell more personally in our minds. Attics, while always portrayed as foreboding and frightening, are usually filled with the better things of life, the fragments we hold on to for the peace they bring us when we picture them there or dig through to hold them briefly once again.

In the unrelenting and indiscriminating fire, colorful plastics and bright fabrics become grey; photos curl and blacken and turn to dust. Oft-used and carefully-preserved baby furniture turns crisp and crumbles into a wind-sifted mix with everyday un-notables like ironing boards and end-tables. And finally, the "things" of life are matted into the melted carpet by gallons and gallons of water until the precious mixes with the priceless and the pointless to make a porridge, a gooey, sticky paste upon the floor.

All gone.

Stuff.

Forever in the rear-view mirror, no matter how many circles we make to try to come in around before the fire. 

Adios, stuff.

Now, don't get me wrong. I miss the stuff, but I miss greater things. We lost a lot, but we have endured greater loss before. I would like some of the stuff back into my life, but not as much as I want something else -- someone else -- back. Make that plural. People away long before the fire.

I guess I fear that a new attic on a new house may remain too empty.

Three days passed and the house did not rise, proving once again that if we worship stuff, we ourselves may someday just be more of the mix of grey. No, the house did not rise . . . but the sun did, right there where it always does, just to the east of the piece of land on which the house stood. 

What good is a fire -- or any seemingly-destructive moment in our lives -- if we don't try to see in it how God is able? Able to take those ashes that look like "the end" to us and work His endless beginnings again?  What good is searing heat without eye-opening light? What good is a look into the rear-view mirror if it is not to safely change lanes and proceed? What good is it to lose all that old stuff if we forget that He is always making all things new?

At night, when there is nothing more to do, I think through the why and come up with . . . whatever? Mental flexing won't re-mix mortar and re-frame walls that aren't there anymore no more than it will take down walls still there that you wish were not. But still, you can't help but wonder and though God is the God of all Wonders, the devil of doubt likes to use them too.

Such as . . .

-- Maybe this is somehow my fault? Not, fault as in, did I leave a burner on (I didn't), or put something too close to a heater (nope) or . . . whatever . . . nada.  In fact, I was simply watching a less-than-a-barn-burner basketball game on TV and smelled something burning. That simple. The "fault" questions plague the mind at midnight because, no matter how fully aware we are of forgiveness, we sometimes think we deserve every bad thing that happens to us, as if God sits with a scorecard and realizes all of a sudden we need a holy zap. I'm not talking about the natural consequences that arise from our sins, but just the general late-night idea that, because we failed and turned away in the past, we are doomed to encounter all kinds of dreadful things in the future, as if, somehow past bad judgment and temptation-succumbing should just naturally lead to a house-fire. "I deserve this." Nope.  I deserved lots of things that were specifically-connected to my sins, but the towering inferno is not one of those things. God doesn't work that way. Our lives may seemingly go up in smoke because of sexual sin, but our house is not predestined to flash into flames. Bad things and good things happen to good people and bad. They just do. There's no reason to fan the flames.The devil likes to fill our minds with doleful tales of doubts about what we've done and who we are and what we've brought upon ourselves to bring us down to the putrid depths of the distant dark in which he dwells. No doubt about it; the devil hates us. God works to restore us, reserving mansions because He loves us.  

-- Maybe God will work a miracle. Maybe. Maybe not. Miracle-musing at midnight fades in the brightness of the realistic dawn. God can do anything. He could use this tragedy to fulfill a wish list or answer a prayer. He could. These moments work in movies and books to round out the tragedy of the plot and bring everyone home in a group-hug moment of awakening, forgiveness and a furious re-building of relationships. The important thing in real life for the Christian -- no matter how terribly checkered or how nearly flawless the life lived so far -- is to trust and obey. Expectations built on that foundation are always met. "Trust and Obey" are not lyrics or simple inspiring words, they are God's Word, strong and mighty. He just naturally likes us to do what He knows is best for us.

-- Maybe I'm just cursed.  If so, a quick read of the morning paper puts me in good company. If all the afflicted are cursed, the crowd is approaching a point beyond control. The pain some people bear these days before Christmas makes my "stuff," seem less than minimal and my focus on it purely dismal and dumb. In a world full pf people who pant thirstily for peace, chaos too often reigns.

Maybe . . . maybe I should just drop all the maybes altogether and celebrate the blessings I have because they are too many to count.

No maybe about this: I have a wonderful wife -- Lisa -- who truly does see beauty rising from ashes and is patient enough to wait for others to clue in to the view.

No maybe about this: I have friends.  I have neighbors. I have family. Good and loving people, whether they're in Norman, Oklahoma or Faridpur, Bangladesh, Cincinnati or Columbia, Seattle or OKC, Texas or Tennessee, Alaska or Australia. God's house is really big, and it stands. And encourages. And helps. And loves. 

Which leads me back to the blessings. And peace. For some reason, I have a feeling this past Christmas will rank a bit higher in my memory even than the year I got the hamster . . . and, at that time of life, I could not see how that could ever be topped.

Thank you for your prayers. You helped me see that God was with me, not in the attic. He was not framed in by the flaming walls. He does not drift away on clouds of smoke into the night and His brightness does not fade no matter how blazing the rising or setting of the sun, just one of His many handiworks.

God has a way of taking away doubts and maybes and replacing them with truths.

Sometimes you have to be taken back down to the foundation so everything can become new. Refurnished, fresh, the old removed, the walls strong, the clutter turned to ashes.


Sometimes I just feel like a house.


God Bless. Enjoy the summer; Christmas is coming again.

Thom

(Note: Please visit my author page on Amazon.com. My books are available there, including Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do . . . Pro-Gay Culture: The Mouse that Keeps on Roaring . . . Sex and the Church: Less than Amazing Grace . . . Those Not-So-Still Small Voices . . . and Why was my Voice so Small?)

Note to Self: I Forgive You

I read recently of a man who "threw in the towel," so to speak. He gave up the good fight and surrendered to -- no, accepted -- as he might put it, his inner gayness . . . the "real me." He fought the fight for decades, perhaps not as well as he would have wanted to when in the midst of battle, too little pushing through and too much giving in, but clearly with the hope of overcoming. I don't doubt that, as I know you can search and cry out, even as you hide and act out. He had raised his family, served his church, built his career and, -- perhaps being generous here -- had been married for more than 25 years.

His new philosophy?  My turn.

Pro-gay advocates point to experiences like his as revelation, as a celebration of a man who has embraced -- finally -- his freedom, and as proof that "no one" ever really walks out of homosexuality. They will point to the "evidence." He spent his life in church, had been thoroughly counseled, confessed and repented repeatedly, but had finally, through self-awareness, come to the realization that God made him "that way," and that fear-mongering believers had repressed him, hated him, rejected him, neglected him, even, in some odd way, perverted him. In our ever-changing please-yourself-at-all-costs society, the enlightened -- though admittedly depressed -- man makes his choice. As a Christian, he can even find a gay-affirming denomination that will provide him with a fits-all theology to soothe the pain of his past and project him into a glorious re-defined future of self-realized bliss in a community of acceptance and constant support. Never mind that such a community will never exist this side of heaven

I heard recently from another man who, so tired of hiding his porn-addiction, but so fearful of revealing it, has retreated into the shadows of self-satisfaction. The fear that his Christian brothers might discover his addiction has driven him to choose it over them. The real people in his life are slowly being replaced by air-brushed images. The love he cannot seem to find in the imperfect world is now provided by the perfect people of pleasure that he will never meet or ever know except in his eye-glazed fantasy life.

I've tried to think through the reality that too many Christians today are walking away from a life centered on Christ and into a lifestyle centered on satisfaction. They are seasick from being tossed about by the waves and caught in the swells between the declining churches that stand strong on truth and the growing impact of a culture that chooses its truths as if were cruising the breakfast cereal aisle, a little crunch, a bit of fiber and a bunch of sugar and preservatives. The sweet life forever. Do they walk away from the Christ-centered life because, while it worked for them in most respects, they believe it did not in regards to their sexual self-understanding? Was the easy yoke just not easy enough? The rewards pretty good, but the obedience unbearable?

It's one thing to look at what we might consider the burdens of life and say, "my turn." It's not always justified, but people do that all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with sexual identity. It's entirely another thing to look into the ever-present face of God and say, "my turn," and then walk away in search of a more suitable Savior. That has everything to do with identity . . . spiritual, relational, sexual . . . anyway you define it. Deep inside, in the truthfulness of our hearts, believers know that we cannot survive with a split identity. In other words, you can not be "gay-identified" and "Christ-identified." One rules and the other riles against the one that rules. It's the two-master concept.

So, why do some Christians wage the war to the glorious end, comforted with the knowledge that the battle scars will fade in eternity, no matter how wearying and consuming they may be in this life? And why do some Christians, upon discovering what they have been deceived into believing is their true identity, point fingers back at the church and unload upon it the condemnation, shame and judgment they perceived -- in many cases with full justification -- that they received and internalized, even as they walked among the flock with a hidden heaviness in their hearts?

I think it is the leanness of love and the falseness of forgiveness that reflects the frailty of the church to confront the chaos of culture. We've done a miserable job of promoting the pillars of Christ's approach to sin. We've been so focused on defining sin and labeling people that we have been woefully poor at putting into practice the remedy. We would rather be a church of perfection and punishment than a church defined by love and forgiveness. We have not demonstrated that we truly believe that people can be made new, so it is not so surprising that they look for the newness somewhere else. I'm still amazed that so many in the church are so anxious to know what the Bible says about the sin of homosexuality but have little interest in what Christ had to say about redemption. If we were talking in a physical realm, would you go to a doctor who told you you had an identifiable condition but who refused to write a prescription? So why do we tell someone we believe they have an affliction, but we offer nothing to them because we haven't really learned what to say or do?

We say want to be like Christ. Truth is, some of the people who end up -- willingly or not -- confronting their sexual conditions within the church are more likely to throw themselves into the well than to walk away with living water. Others are so damaged by the reactions to their "sin above all sins," that they are inclined to pick up the stones before the church does and pound themselves with guilt and shame.

When I became sin-identified -- known by all as that guy who did "that" and lied about it -- I found myself establishing a checklist of forgiveness. God, my wife, my kids, my pastor, my elders, my Christian brothers and sisters. God's forgiveness was assured, as He is true to His word. My wife's forgiveness was given, as she is true also to His word. Checking off the first two helped start my healing, but what of the roadblocks that remain? The other hopes on the list?

Sometimes we need to revise our lists -- add and subtract -- with one eye on the hope of Godly grace and the other on the reality of human shortsightedness. Christ made forgiveness look easy, because he was without sin . . . and I believe not to forgive is sinful.  Regardless, it is not so easy for most people. While we should not grant them a pass on it, we should pass on beyond them and move forward in patience . . . to finish the list.

The name we tend to leave off the list, to our great detriment, is our own. To the struggler who has witnessed every single account of his own repeated failings, the mantra is often "I cannot forgive myself."

Yes, you can. And, if you are ever going to heal, you must.

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven." -- Matthew 18:21-22.

Sometimes I think this verse in the Bible where Christ provides some clarity to the question about how many times we should forgive was put there for me to understand the stamina needed to forgive myself. Yes, I know it applies to our brothers and sisters, but how many times did I look in the mirror and say "I can't?" He says, "you shall."

We have to remind ourselves that forgiveness is possible only because Christ paid an incredible price for it. When we look into our own eyes and into our hearts and in a silence in which only He and we dwell and we say "I forgive you," we know that He already has. The words cannot be hollow. They cannot be said as mere salve on a wound that we intend to pick open again. Forgiveness is meant to be healing.

We can still hope to complete our checklists. It is of great value to us that others forgive us. It would be of great value to them as well, as is everything we do that is Christ-like. It may be that they are holding it back until they think we deserve it, in which case we may never get it. Forgive them.

Sometimes we have to forgive ourselves even if others do not, or we risk joining them as stumbling blocks on the road to recovery. Can I say with certainty that the men above and others would still be "fighting the good fight" if they had been able to forgive themselves for their past succumbing? No, even with my own experience it is hard to step into another's shoes or feel another's torment or weigh his weakness. But I do know that self-forgiveness is a formidable weapon against Satan, who prefers self-hatred, a concept with which I am familiar and one which I should not have fallen for.

Note to self: I forgive you.

God Bless,

Thom

It Came from Within!

For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. -- Mark 7:21-22

If you were born any time since the early 1950s, which would take into consideration any of us between the age of one and 61, you've always known that we are pretty much menaced moment-by-moment. If some bug-eyed, superior being with multiple antennae is not plunging to earth from the deepest reaches of space, zapping all the way, munching on us or putting us into pods or beaming us up for experiments, then some monolithic monster from the deep which has been magnified and enraged by nuclear bombs or other man's mischief is speeding to the surface to chomp on us, swallow our boats and stomp our cities. Even the rocks can arrange themselves into monsters and provide us each a personal avalanche. Spiders wrap us, birds pluck out our eyes, zombies chase us through town, blobs devour us, aliens drain us, sharks shred us, meteors pound us and death rays vaporize us.


Yet . . . here we are. We turn off the TV, walk out of the movie, put down the comic book and look in the mirror to admit that the real menace is me. It comes from within. And, according to Mark, above, we have a pretty lengthy list of foes residing deep within the deep, growing like mold in the darker parts of our inner soul.  Peachy keen, huh?  Pick your personal poison and see how slowly it kills you. Or, mix and match: a layer of sexual immorality, a pinch of adultery, a tinge of lewdness, infused with envy, topped off with a dollop or two of pride. Now that's a recipe for success that any inner demon could admire.


I remember when I first came to grips with the fact that acting on homosexual temptation was a sin. It wasn't that I had ever really thought perhaps it was not wrong, but I do think I believed it was somewhat justified, kind of like justifiable homicide, when you have no choice but to kill someone who is coming after you. No choice. That's the way it can feel to struggle with sexual brokenness. The temptations assail you, building upon insecurities, uncertainties and normal needs that have been twisted and rearranged by events of life beyond your control. Indeed, denial seems to be an unrealistic and unnecessary impediment to happiness and inner peace. I have come to fully understand those who get tired of the whirlpool and throw themselves onto the banks of cultural-acceptance, just wanting relief from the dizziness of being tossed between culture and faith, of being the poster-child of all that is wrong with the world. You're wrong to do it; wrong to deny it. 


But you're still you, in and out a creation that delights God, even if the distractions of your struggle cause others to disdain you, delve into you, distance themselves from you, dismiss you, seek to destroy you, or dare to love you. 


Like God does.


Or, even if the distractions of your struggle cause others -- no matter how hard you resist -- to want to really know you.


Like God does.

For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. -- Psalm 139:13

We spend far too much time trying to be what people want us to be, think what people want us to think, believe what people want us to believe, want what people want us to want, change what people want us to change. We can get so exhausted trying to please people that we have little time to please God; we can be so busy remaking ourselves that we don't even seek to be what God intended us to be. In fact, His patience is so   . . . patient . . . that we allow the persistent pushiness of man to commandeer us. We take advantage of His willingness to wait while we try to satisfy the demands of the throngs looking at our lives and suggesting do-overs. 


Perhaps we might wish the "still-small-voice" was a little more agitating and a bit louder. There's a lot of cacophony that deserves a good drowning out. Still, that still-small-voice is the expression of the One who created the universe and our place in it.


Consider this: all those times that you are cowed in a corner somewhere, twisted into the shape of one big question mark, digging out the duct tape to keep your head from exploding from the pressure of the relentless quandary that can plague the mind of a man or woman who wants to do one thing . . . but really wants to do another thing, can't quite think through the whole process, is about to throw in the towel again and submit to self-satisfaction . . . God knows. He knows what you are thinking about, why you think about it and why you think you can't stop thinking about it. You being tempted is no big surprise to God. He knows what triggers it, what you think relieves it . . . and He even already knows what you are going to think about yourself after you give in and do what you have been thinking about. But, as much as he loves confession and repentance, He would much rather enter your thoughts early and avoid those steps altogether. 


He's there for the whole pressure-cooker process as the mess from deep within begins to gin and explodes again and coats the walls of your longed-for peaceful life with the staining goo of giving in. 

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. -- Psalm 139:23

He's not busy with someone else. He hears your prayer.


Search me. -- Sometimes when I stand calmly before a mirror and focus on my own eyes, I think: "Do I know you?"  This evokes moments of honesty, easily diverted with a toothbrush or by plugging in the shaver. God has no such distractions. Ask Him to really search you and He will not look away or busy Himself with the day's preparations. He created the day and He placed you in it. He sees in and out and every way around.


Know me. -- We want people to know what we want them to know, not really know us. God knows us. He knows not only that inner itch, but He knows what happened to us in the world to raise it to a level of irritation that demands we do whatever is in our power to seek relief. He knows that what might have been a bearable curiosity in me, for instance, was fully inflamed to major "I want" status by the double-whammy of father abandonment and childhood sexual abuse. But he also knows the pain some of you may feel because you find yourselves embroiled in a temptation and the only person you can point a finger at is yourself. It may be dissatisfying when there is no one else to blame, but the truth remains the same. Sin is sin. God wants to hear you say "know me." He already does, of course, but He wants to know you want Him to know.


Test me. -- God doesn't test us the way the world tests us. He's not the dangle-type, holding something just out of reach to see if we will wear ourselves out lunging along the edge of self-destruction. Remember . . . He does not tempt. So . . . can you trust Him to test you? If you asked Him to search you and to know you, then why not let Him test you to see if you know yourself as He does? God tests us to prepare us for victory, not defeat. So . . . search and know, just like you asked Him to do. Search His word; know His ways. Ask Him to test you. And don't forget the answers to the bonus question:  "trust and obey."


Know my anxious thoughts. -- No wait . . . don't. Not those thoughts. Isn't that the way many of us approach life? Yet, here is the acknowledgement that we will have those anxious thoughts. You can't hide them, not from God. 


I get anxious sometimes. I listen to the reasoned arguments of people on both sides of the strugglers' "personal problems.' Most of the time I just don't like what I hear and I want to straighten it all out, make it clear, stop the pain, bring perfect understanding and healing rain for all. And then I realize that if I had it all figured out . . .  then I would have it all figured out. Truth is, even if I did, why would people listen to me any more than they listen to God?


One of the strangest stretch-of-a-movies I ever watched on SyFy, in its everlasting effort to find more and more monsters, was called Rock Monster. A college student travels to a remote eastern-European village and unwittingly releases the rock monster who wreaks havoc on the peaceful countryside.


The only real threat that rocks might come to life is if we think we can suppress the truth of Christ. When the Pharisees tried to hush the disciples, Jesus Himself made it clear.

 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” -- Luke 19:40.

With all the effort going on in our world today to silence the truth of Christ, it's a wonder we're not all sitting on the banks of a river listening to the rocks babble. We're all on the verge of truth, no matter what we do to divert our minds from it. God's love for us will not allow Him to change His mind.  He won't make something that is wrong seem right just to make us feel better.  Nor will Jesus' love for us allow Him to ignore us when we ask Him to search us, know us and test us.  Be thankful that the sins that plague us come from within, because that is where Christ cleanses us.


That's monstrously powerful.


Please God with your life by knowing what pleases God . . . and everyone else will be fine, or, if not, in need of and greatly worthy of your prayers.


God Bless,


Thom


(Want to know more about overcoming sexual brokenness? Order a copy of Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do. Available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and through your bookstore.)

The Life We Want to Erase

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” – Revelation 21:5

I wish -- though I don't believe in wishes -- that I could take a number two pencil and write down on a blue-lined piece of three-hole-punched notebook paper the moments of my life, label it "draft," study it a bit, and then turn the pencil around to the pink side -- the eraser -- and smudge away forever a line here and there . . . many lines, major smudges. Study it a bit more, swipe away with my hand the little black rubber crumbles, dirty from the mix of pink eraser and pencil lead, onto the floor . . . gone.  

Erased.

I would take a deep breath, sit back and sigh, copy the remains onto a fresh piece of paper, smooth it out and turn it in . . . to someone . . . and wait with confidence for the grade. This would be the only copy; not a draft, but an A-deserving masterpiece. In permanent ink, my finest handwriting, nothing to erase; no need. I would crumple up the old messy draft, toss it away with no further thought, done, rise, walk.

I wish . . . though I don't believe in wishes.

The truth is, "free will" resembles a Sharpie more than a number-two pencil. The use of it leaves permanent marks -- an indelible stain -- and often results in a lot of crumbling-up and tossing and shredding instead of erasing. Out, damned spot. Who wouldn’t prefer the sweet smell of a new pink eraser over the black acrid odor of a inky black marker leaving trails and tracks that reflect the staggering stumbles of the exercise of our careening-off-the-tracks free will. Can't erase? Reach for the White-Out, which will leave a pasty crumbly mess itself, no match for the thick black markings of me being me . . . showing through.

There is no greater longing for the person near-drowning in sexual brokenness – whether homosexuality, adultery, porn addiction, lust – than to be able to go back to that first moment when the pull was just a gentle tug, long before the constant violent repelling into the canyon began.  What would you erase?

Selfishness.

Self-pity.

Self-defensiveness

Self-gratification.

Okay . . . well, maybe that's a little too much "self."

How about . . .

Deception?

Fear?

Doubt?

Weakness?

Self-reliance?  Oops . . . there's that "self" thing again.

Maybe it would be better to just gently smudge out a moment in time, here and there. Problem is, some of them are so darkly there that the only way to get them out is to rub all the way through the paper, leaving a hole that speaks as clearly as the original deed itself. I've tried. Accepting the fact that, while we can forgive – we can't erase the deeds of others, we can settle for the hope that we can erase responses to them. You can’t truly erase childhood sexual abuse or father abandonment or mother-smothering, or bullying, or neglect, or rejection, or too-early-exposure to evil. Perhaps then, we can smudge out the starts and stops of our reactions to the dark marks others left within us?  Like a long word problem on a math quiz that leaves you stymied and you try this and that . . . erase . . . try again . . . erase. The word problem is still there no matter what you do to the answer. Just keep figuring.

If we could erase at will – and why is that not a part of free will? – I would take the liberal approach, hopefully giving me opportunities to fill in the blanks with a better me.

Where to start? Like stepping into an attic too long neglected, I find that the clutter has taken control and there is scarcely room to stand while sifting through the memories that wouldn’t bring a dime in a desperation garage sale of broken thoughts, distorted hopes and desperate acts.

The unguarded neediness that leads . . .

I wish -- though I don't believe in wishes – that I could erase the moment I leaned over to the rolled-down window of a little beige Volkswagen on a foggy campus night in college and accepted a ride out of the cold drizzle. I would have erased the route to his house and the memory of having been there. Where’s the invisible ink when we really need it?

The little lies by which we die . . .

I would erase the first lie I told. No, not some silly little lie about taking a cookie before dinner, but the first lie I told myself: "this doesn't really matter. I'm not hurting anyone anyway." When you fall for that lie and carry it around inside for a while and find that you can fool yourself into believing it, you start trying it out on others to see if they might fall for it too. Pretty soon, it's you, not a lie. Deception only doubles the damage of the action which hides beneath it.

The inner pain that drains . . .

If we cannot erase the lies, then maybe we can erase the pain that grows from them? The weary wondering of what others must have wondered, pondering the inconsistencies that characterized our character as we channeled our inner chaos. The deep sorrow of disappointing others that provides the perfect environment for the growth of self-avoidance. (Oops, there’s that self again.) Like a dreaded homework assignment, we became the word problem for which there are no answers. Figure and erase . . . smudge, smudge, smudge, wearing right through the soul like a flimsy sheet of writing paper. The hole remains.

The sharing of the blame . . .

I would erase the times I tried to deflect the truth of my actions by pointing a finger at someone else, Like the time my son confronted me with knowledge he had that I had sinned sexually and I defended myself by pointing a finger at the way he was confronting me with an anger totally justified by my mis-behavior. I would erase his hurt, disappointment and disgust. No one makes us sin, or lie, or blame . . . or do it all again. . The more we do each, the more weary is our wrist, frantically reducing the eraser to a stub which rips and tears away at the story of our lives.

Acquiescence to accusations . . .

After owning up to true accusations by erasing deception . . . I would then erase the moments I failed to act on false accusations, letting shame and guilt from true deeds allow false ones to go unanswered. The weight the sexual sinner bears should not make him fair game for the more pure to pile on with speculation, adding layers of thickness and cubits of height to a wall that already seemed impenetrable and beyond climbing. It will help you to learn to tell the truth about yourself if you can also learn to refute others when they lie about you, or, more politely put, make false accusations. Anytime a false accusation stands, truth suffers and when truth suffers, we all do.

Moments of semi-inspired but underdeveloped bravado . . .

I would erase the times I said "I will not fail again." I know the devil smiled at that one, for though he could not have known for sure that I would fail again, my claims of strength must have redoubled his efforts to make it happen. It’s not very wise to stand up tall and double-dog-dare the devil. How he must love the little word "I." How he must rejoice (does the devil rejoice?) at the longer word "again," when it is part of a vow, no matter how intentionally intended. “I will not fall again.”  Eraser in hand, I would smudge out the word "I" and try never to write it again with the word "will." God wills. I follow.

The wannabe me . . .

I would erase the times I hid my weaknesses behind my efforts to impress with my strength. The times I worked harder on looking good than on being good, on doing right instead of being right, on projecting an image instead of revealing a reality.

The don’t-need-you me . . .

I would erase the haughtiness with which I approached the earliest offers of help and I would scribble in a "yes . . . I need help," and write in clearest cursive, "thank you."

We don’t have an eraser. At least not one that is stronger than the reminders. Most sexually-broken people have pages and pages of permanent words representing our lives, ranging from deception to desperation, from putrid prose to pure poetry, from painful falling to joyful soaring, from self-reviling to self-restoring, from quiet hiding to loud revealing, from darkness and heaviness to light and . . . lightness. All there, like a jumble with words out of place, a sentence for which no blackboard is large enough on which to diagram to anyone's specifications. In that sense, are our lives that different from those around us who struggle with whatever temptation has inflicted them?

I've looked at life from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all

 -- Joni Mitchell

Count the "I"s in the lyrics. No wonder we fall so easily to the illusion of life instead of the truth of it. Or at least, I do . . . or did. And when we do, we yearn for the eraser as a quick answer to the question, "Why did I do that?" And we walk around in a stupor, wringing our hands and muttering madly, blaming our actions on our inability to get a grasp on . . . life.

. . . I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. -- John 10:10

That's the "I" that really matters and the life that is no illusion. Drop the eraser and embrace the abundance.

For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 

-- John 1:16-17

For the things we can't erase . . . there's grace.

God Bless,

Thom

Order your copy of Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do, for as little as $9.80 at this link: Amazon.com. Also available on Kindle for only $7.99 at this link: Kindle Store.

The Devilish Debate Over Choice vs. Chance

Don't take credit for not falling into a sin that never tempted you in the first place. -- Billy Graham

The clash between pro-gay culture and the church is turning into a tragic comedy with about the air-time quality of a 20-year-old 2 a.m. TV-Land repeat. Snooze. Who loses?

Truth loses.

I think sometimes we care way more about why someone struggles than we care about who struggles, almost as if in the search for a sensible reason we can make some sense of sin . . . which is, in itself, senseless, though ever-present and unrelenting in its mission to diminish our significance to make us little more than the centerpiece of a . . . senseless . . . debate. Do we, for some reason, think that if we only did know why, we would suddenly be overwhelmed with a sense of compassion we could not evoke for the poor little who when we didn't know why?

While a suffering soul lies in a darkened state of being, fleeing from self and hiding from others, curled into a camouflaged ball of despair, the less-encumbered-at-the moment among us enter into the debate of why he or she does what we don't. Some of us conclude that it can't be helped -- it's just who he is -- while others conclude he wants no help. If he did, he would have straightened out last time we extended a bit of grace in his direction. No wonder some strugglers emerge from the cocoon of confusion and embrace a sudden cure of their broken ways or an enlightened acceptance of themselves as never having been broken to begin with. Anything to get out of the raging debate.

But what about that why? Does the homosexual choose homosexuality or was he born that way? Let's just keep talking while the Christian struggler dies a little more each day, dwindling away at the edge of the endless debate, wishing he could answer the why himself so we would see he is a who. We ought to be debating why we are not more like Christ, who saw sin for what it was and the sinner for who he was. And could be. Those who struggle and fall are of no less value to Christ today than was the woman caught in adultery who received  His grace face-to-face.

 “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” -- John 8:11

Who cares?  Who . . . that's who.

So many in our churches and in our culture are distracted with the search for explanations for temptations or excuses for behavior. Such distraction blinds us to the truth as we work overtime to clarify God's Word with our clumsy wishes. Oh gee . . . if He would only have asked me, I would have told Him to write it this way. The devil has always known we would do that and he has counted on it. No doubt he cackles at the chaos he creates with simple questions and great promises that confound us and give us twisted hope in our search for justification for what God clearly said is sin.

Questions like:

"Did God really say?" (Eve fell for that one and Adam jumped right into the middle of the first great culture shift with a hearty amen.)

Promises like:

"All this I will give you." (Jesus did not fall for that one, knowing that everything good comes from His Father.)

One question and one statement. Two lies. Repeated over and over in an evil echo down through the generations to today when people so crave internal peace that they care not from where it rises; they just want it. They want someone to tell them what God really meant rather than what God really said, which was, by the way, what He really meant. Interestingly, Satan boldly questions God's Word, His character and even His motives.

People, often unwillingly and unwittingly the worker-bees of Satan's mischief, do the same. Christians who believe what the Bible says about homosexuality are painted as backwards and intolerant, selectively judgmental, determined not to set the captives free but instead bury them under some prudish outdated pronouncement of purity, not out of love, but out of superiority. We have, after all, the Word of God on our side. That's true, but the overriding emphasis of the Word of God and the One who spoke everything into being is love.

Yes, God really did say that homosexuality is a sin. God really did say we would be tempted to sin, which includes homosexuality. God really did say we can be forgiven and He can make us whole again. He said He loves us, doesn't leave us and wants to be with us. Which, by the way, is not the typical way Christians treat sexual sinners . . . even those who confess and repent.

He also said Satan is a liar, so, when Satan appears as the voice of modern culture and repeats his age-old promises, why should we be surprised that they're delivered with the precision of a practiced deceiver? He's slick, and not just because he's a serpent.

For the man who has repeatedly fallen into sin with other men . . . for the woman who longs to be in the arms of another woman . . . for the teens to senior citizens who position themselves behind screens to watch pornography play out as they fantasize . . . to the man who opens the car door to a prostitute and the prostitute who hops in, Satan says: "All this I will give you."

What is he offering? Peace, acceptance, freedom, wisdom, rest, satisfaction, bonding, understanding, love.

Wow . . . that sounds really good, doesn't it? Especially if you've been doing daily dives into the swamp.

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. -- 2 Corinthians 11:14

To complete the masquerade, the great deceiver even labels his words as truth.

What is he really giving? Shame, guilt, lust, pain, fear, frustration, anger, destruction, confusion, self-hatred, all packaged up with a beautiful scarlet bow which wraps around the soul in slow strangulation.

And that's the truth. I should know. I stored all those great gifts in my own closet.

The further truth is that many engaged in this draining debate don't really care. We prefer to state positions over saving people. And I mean saving in the sense of pulling them back from the brink, as many of those who are poised and tilting are already "saved," which is certainly a hard pill for the church to swallow.

Here's a couple of truths we should probably all just deal with: The church is probably not going to convince a culture that makes it decisions on the basis of "it sounds good to me" that engaging in homosexuality is a sin and that we are not born "that way." And, same-said culture is not going to convince the church that homosexuality is a part of God's best for humanity and that it is merely an expression of who God intended some to be. Yes, there are wishy-washy churches and denominations who cozy up to culture and there are cultural -- if you can call them that -- splinter groups who cozy up with hate and think not only are gays not born that way, but should not be allowed to live that way . . . or live at all.

Here's the bottom line. If you are a person who struggles with sexual sin, the choice you need to make is to tune out the chaos, no matter where it is coming from, and pay close attention to the truth of Scripture and the no-conflict voice of the Holy Spirit which will answer if you seek.

The church you attend may not be the church you need to attend. You need a Christ-affirming church that sees you as God created you . . . to be like Him, not like the world. So, avoid the gay-affirming and the gay-hating and seek the God-following. In the meantime, ignore the repeated cultural attempts to elevate gay characters to creatures approaching Nirvana with all their insight and cleverness and self-assured sexual expression. For every one of those, there are dozens dipping their toes into the quicksand of self-doubt out of rejection from their own. Culture proclaims that enlightenment, not "The Light," is the key. Don't fall for the attractive theatrics.

People are not gay by chance, like some sort of birthing lottery ritual. They are not tempted by choice, opting for homosexuality over Hostess Twinkies. People are people; the world is filled with sin, dazzling with gilded temptations and people do what people do: sin. Which is why Christ did what He did. In gratitude accept the grace, seek the strength and skip the debate, leaving it for people who have more time on their hands. You have a battle to win . . . with a Savior at your side.

True that.

God Bless,

Thom