Who Told You You Were Naked?

One of the most discouraging aspects of battling a deeply-internalized sexual issue is that, even after you face it, fight it, and deprive it, something in that deep-internal goes right back to work to revive it. You choke it, pound it, bury it, surrender it and then, before you know it, you're back under it. You toss it out the window on your journey to freedom and about the time you peek in the rear-view mirror, it's splatting on the windshield.

I've heard of . . . and would like to shake the hand of . . . some people who faced-down the addictive nature of sexual brokenness and, in that very moment, rose from that spot of confrontation, not momentarily cleansed and standing in the timidity of repentance, but forever unshackled and absent the pull of a perceived need and a nagging want.  They stand tall and shout the call of freedom. They see trees like men walking and the light is so brilliant that the fog is now mere memory. I've heard their testimonies and I reflected on the sovereignty of God to do that . . . for them . .  but it somehow made God seem so selective.

I've wondered in the past if it was just my lack of faith that left me sitting in the valley beside the mountain mouthing "move." Or was it an allergy to grace that left me itching on occasion to avoid the light of His forgiveness and restoration, opting instead for the darker recesses of the depths of deception? Did I misunderstand mercy? Did I -- while railing at others for doing so -- view my sin as greater than God's vision? Was I my own stingy keeper of the key to the door of hope?

Are you?

I think sometimes we content ourselves -- though there is no real contentedness to it at all -- with knowing that we know where the door is, with knowing that we can knock, with knowing we have a key, with knowing that we can run in that direction if we really need to, with knowing that we will find, on the other side, light and warmth and truth. And yet we go on moving in another direction, comforting ourselves a bit by proximity, staying close enough to the door, but keeping the key in our pocket like some insurance policy, just in case we truly find out that all the lies of the world really are just that. Lies.

In an odd twist of clever deception, the enemy makes the things outside the door seem so tangible and immediate. We look longingly at the door, but believe the lies of the enemy that we have already -- through our endless u-turns -- surrendered to, forfeiting the right to even carry the key, much less slide it into the lock upon which we are so fixated. We're not good enough anymore for His goodness. Too bad, so sad. Too late, your fate. And so we comfort ourselves by pulling the darkness in around us and turn away from the reality that He leaves the light on for us. Do we not realize it is the enemy's goal to make us miserable no matter what side of the fence we stand on?

So . . . we wonder. Why doesn't God just throw open the door and grab us as we slink away from the stoop? Pull us in, slam the door behind us and bolt it. Never let us out again.

Oh sure . . . that sounds just like us, doesn't it? Demanding God strip us of our freedom, take away our will, separate us forcefully from the sin that so enthralls us. Just blind our eyes and banish all temptation.  Do we want Him to remove from us everything that should drive us to Him and then naively think we will be so gratified that we will praise Him forever even though we would no longer need Him, having no need to despair and seek, in the absence of all confusion? You go, God. If You really want us to be so pure and holy, then You do it, God. I know You can.

You do?  You know He can?

Then why flee the door?

It's hard to know how sincere someone is about giving up if you don't know for sure how hard they fought against the giving in. I remember that beyond the original temptations was the great temptation to give up hope, accept fate, make the best of it, count my losses and look for some sort of justification that would allow me to escape the judgment of others and dismantle the complicated and conflicting self in a total embrace of sexuality, as if that self-satisfaction was the answer to all the exasperation of life. It was especially tempting when, whacked by the tidal wave of my revealed sinfulness, my children walked away, my friends departed, my church folded exasperated arms against me, while, at the same time, culture chimed in with all the reasons we should rise beyond the ignorance and embrace the obvious: "being gay is about as good as it gets in this world." It's the domain of the creative and witty and intelligent, the self-actualized and contented ones, the ones who had discovered finally the meaning of loving oneself.

And, in the midst of loving themselves, there are also the sad and the lonely and the searching and the longing and the self-haters, always in pursuit of . . . something. After all, why would gays be deprived of the emotional and relational deficits everyone else suffers?

If we make our decisions on anything less than a full-fledged pursuit of the truth, we should not be surprised to look up one day and see that the door from which we rarely strayed has become so distant that our eyes can barely see it and the key so deep within our pockets that our fingers barely reach it. But . . . the door and the key are both still there.

That's how truth is. It sails like an ever-free bird above the waves of culture, with the land always in sight. Truth doesn't bend beneath the beckoning call to change. Truth does not yield to counterfeited peacefulness. Truth does not cave into the ceaseless call to clarify truth itself. It is just truth. Unchanging, unwavering. Efforts to weaken it only serve to invite the inevitable emergence of the strength of truth.

When you find yourself signaling a left turn into another u-turn, heading back towards the places you wish you'd never been but for some reason long to re-visit . . . it's time to ponder truth. Here's a question you might want to ask yourself:

"Who told you you were naked?"

That's a follow-up question actually. God first asked Adam: "Where are you?" Then, when Adam explained that he had been hiding because he was naked, God said, "Who told you you were naked?"

It wasn't God.

If you have any doubt that the confusion and the sorrow and the anger and the fear and the frustration and the doubt that drive you to and away from the door are what God intended for you rather than what the world uses to ensnare you and enswhirl you in endless circles of questioning your very being, then you don't understand the reason for truth.

The truth is that God knows who we are even when we do not. He accepts us as we are because He see us as He created us to be, not as we have crafted ourselves. Isn't it odd that we think God should change Himself and approve of us rather than that we should change to be approved?

And that's the truth, which, by the way, sets us free.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.-- John 8:32

One more thing about real truth: it will not taunt you or tantalize you because it has no need to make itself attractive. It just is, after all, the truth. It doesn't have to dress up and make promises beyond the one that Jesus Himself made: it sets us free.


I would rather run wildly through the wilderness with my hands in the air and my voice crying out for rescue in pursuit of truth as the hounds of hell bark at my heels than sit in the camouflaged comfort of surrendering to world-inflicted wounds now soothed by the balm of something I know is not from God. How far you enter into the "age of enlightenment" depends on how ignorant you can convince yourself to be about the Word of God.


If God had not already cornered the market on truth, we might have some merit for embracing it from elsewhere or even creating it ourselves. Instead, we need to accept it.


I don't know why some of us find ourselves so at odds with God's clear direction. Yes, I believe He could have sorted a few sins out of the mix. I would have voted for the elimination of sexual brokenness of all kinds so we could all live happily ever after in perfect harmony, with no one conspicuously drifting off key. Let something else be the greatest sin . . . okay? Let someone else be the most naked.


No, I think we are so much better off battling to the very end if that is necessary than we will ever be just seeking an end, at all costs, to this battle. The truth is, only God knows when you will be free of it, but, if you turn your longings elsewhere, forsaking the paths of righteousness for the personal path of what seems right to you or others, you may find yourself in unwelcome wilderness. When you find yourself with a choice between the wilderness and the door, dig deep for the key.

Stand at the crossroads and look; 

ask for the ancient paths, 

ask where the good way is, and walk in it, 

and you will find rest for your souls. -- Jeremiah 6:16

Stand.
Look.
Ask.
Walk.
Rest.


Now that's the naked truth.


God Bless,


Thom

The Lengthening Shadow of Pro-Gay Theology

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. -- I Timothy 4:3-4

SPOILER ALERT:

Pro-gay theology is untrue.

I remember a time, way back in the '70s, when I had an ah-hah moment and it seemed obvious to me that the people around me -- especially my fellow Christians -- had somehow avoided the truth about homosexuality. Out of their in-bred squeamishness and hammered-in desire to look right and be right in the eyes of others, they were failing to see the obvious, the truth that was longingly clear to me. . .  because of me. That truth? That God had made us all unique and that for me and many others, that uniqueness meant we were designed, even in His image, to be gay. In other words, if I feel this way, I am this way and if I am this way, I will be this way. It was a brief moment of unreal reality. In time, at a time that often seems too late to turn around, the ah-hah turns into oh-no, which can turn into oh-well as we sink into a realization of resignation.

In the simpler '70s -- the tell-it-like-it-is days -- there was little support for a that position. Christians, coarsely and clumsily perhaps, were clear on the issue. So was God,, through His Word. The evidence was overwhelming and the acceptance of homosexuality was pretty much limited to the non-Christian crowd. Gay and affirming were two words not worthy of a hyphen. As time passed, emboldened ones learned to disguise deep deceits as simple truths.

So lets build a life on feelings. Whoa . . . whoa . . . whoa . . . feelings.

Feelings over truth.
Desires over doctrine.
Collective deceit over self-denial.

Besides, don't you know, don'ts are so depressing. The search is on for the birds of a feather, as there's a flock for everything these days.

Years earlier, as a little boy, I took a stroll through a Halloween carnival. I remember a booth where we had to put on blindfolds and reach into buckets and pick up objects and identify them through feeling them. In the environment of the darkening night and the musings of a searching mind, innocent everyday objects became everything from animal guts to eyeballs to elements of torture. That's what they felt like. Guesses, right or wrong, were rewarded with candy.

A life built on feelings leads to a slow strangling, trying to swallow intangibles in efforts to convince ourselves that we are on some divine path . . . or, failing that, convince ourselves that there is no divinity. If that be the case, then indeed, why not let feelings rule? We can become rulers over our personally-designed kingdoms, dropping the drawbridge and throwing open the doors to words that match our mind's eye on the things that matter to us . . . and bolting the doors tight to keep out thoughts and ideas -- and truths -- that might hurt . . . our feelings.

I wish it were that innocent: just a little pouting over petty disagreements, rather than people determinedly self-drowning themselves in deep deceit while the keepers of the life-rafts check the equipment and position themselves on the deck to be ready if needed, not aware that misled souls are dropping overboard in silence. Why do we think we need to watch people wear themselves out dashing between the dance partners of the culture and the church until finally we hear some near-death scream of desperation and have to make a decision whether to cut the rope to which they cling or haul them in?

Granted, when I was first struggling with same-sex attraction -- back in the days when such a thing was referred to with slurs and obscene labels -- I never said a word. I dug in and I dug deeper. I soothed my guilt by seeking some kind of justification. I covered shame by projecting purity. I stood on a tightrope doing what was right because I loved God and doing what was wrong because I loved the world too. People pretty much took me at my carefully-crafted word and I moved on, breathing silent sighs of relief, stealthily maneuvering the double life until the inevitable crash and burn. Putting it in relevance to today's society, it now seems like such a tedious spiral, not so much necessary today since we, as Christians, have stood by and watched as pretty much all of the "stigma" of truth has been stripped of any power to persuade people to at least explore the possibility that the path on which they are tiptoeing is not God-ordained.

In the constant celebration of self that inhabits this era of enlightenment, the love of truth has been dismantled by those who have re-labeled it as hate. It's supposed to be that not showing love is the clanging of a cymbal, but somehow that has been reversed so that when we look into the eyes of a bewildered and searching man or woman and share the truth, the pro-gay theology bunch -- who have been busy spinning scriptural wishful-thinking -- come pouncing forth, pronouncing disagreement as homophobia and compassion as hate and everyone goes all deaf due to the roar of confusion. It's no wonder -- though the lack of resolve is depressing -- that Christians just look for other problems to solve.

Already we were woefully weak in our efforts to help the uncertain ones who were still trying to find out what the Bible really says and means. The record was dismal even before the pro-gay "theologians" realized they could usurp the position and play with the Word of God just enough to suddenly themselves look like the compassionate ones, curling their pointing finger to lure the exhausted with promises of finding out finally that they can live as they were intended and shake off all the weight of centuries of Biblical ignorance. It's an empty promise that allows one to live as he wants, restlessly ruling over a kingdom of his own design, sitting on a throne that depends on loyalty and faithfulness to self, always searching for a way to keep himself satisfied as both subject and emperor.

They're not told of the sorrow that eventually unfolds in the life of any Christian who puts anything above God. Yes, we all do it, but in the self-defined kingdom there is no route to repentance. Restoration only comes through the pursuit of pleasure, which, as it turns out, is an endless search to eventual emptiness. Why do we stand helplessly by while the captives we say we want to set free sit nervously around tying greater knots about themselves in a circle of others who nod approval?

I think one of the scariest things about today's pro-gay theology is not that it has all the clarity of a Midwestern corn maze and all the promise of a Mayan temple of sacrifice, but that few people seem to even care. Embracing gay theology for personal relief requires that believing Jesus rejected the teachings of His Father. Being as they are One, we might just as well embrace theological schizophrenia.  Embracing gay theology requires we believe that our personal satisfaction is more valuable than God's truth and that what He really said is for us to do whatever makes us happy. That should put a new twist on "Love your neighbor as yourself." Embracing gay theology would basically mean that anything Jesus is not quoted as being against, He is for. That would open all kinds of doors, including pedophilia, wife-beating, incest and bestiality. After all, He was silent on those as well, not that every word Jesus ever said was written down. Young Christian men and women are being sucked into the mass of lies like they've tumbled into a pit full of vipers. At the same time, most pastors and church leaders rarely move beyond the promise to pray, sitting back down behind their desks in their offices with their books and their bigger issues.

What then should a Christian who struggles with homosexual temptation do?

Open your eyes. -- Examine the scriptures for yourself. Read them in context of the entire expressed Word of God. Probably more scriptural cherry-picking has taken place regarding homosexuality by both sides than anything else.

Open your mind. -- Pray for wisdom and then read about homosexuality in Leviticus, Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy. As hard as it is for those who are attracted to and even love someone of the same sex, homosexuality is mentioned only in the context of immoral behavior.

Open your heart. -- God dwells in the hearts of men who give their hearts to Him. He's listening; watching and responding. You think He can't change you if that is the desire of your heart and if you turn your temptation over to Him each time it works to enslave you?  Let 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 work in your heart.

Open your door. -- Yes, it's scary to even consider letting people in to know what is troubling you. Find someone you can trust; someone who does not struggle but truly loves both you and the Lord. Pray that God will reveal someone who can walk with you and not run from you; who can love you and not condemn you; who can forgive you if you fail.

What then should a Christian who does not struggle with homosexual temptation do?

Open your eyes. -- We have become so accustomed to diverting our eyes for self-protection that we've not noticed that some of the people who used to walk beside us have been picked off one-by-one. By the time we wake up, they've embraced the empty promises of completeness presented to them as welcome answers to the questions we ignored.

Open your mind. -- I don't mean "have an open mind." I mean learn something. Learn the scriptures. Learn how to apply them accurately. Learn how to support them. Learn how to share them. Learn how to listen to the refutations and reply with the truthful compassion of a Savior who pointed out sin and then helped the sinner stand and walk free.

Open your heart. -- Is your neighbor's son really of no value to you? Is your friend's daughter of no consequence? Is your brother just a passing thought? Should the struggler be a distant memory? Is the sinner for whom repentance is a repeat performance someone we should just brush off? Is the gay man or woman who was once in your circle now to be conveniently redrawn outside the border?

Open your door -- We know the King and we are the kingdom, but we have made it so foreboding that it has become forbidding and those who need it the most are rebuilding it elsewhere, fashioning walls without a true cornerstone. Who can blame Christian men and women, exhausted from the balancing act and the ups-and-downs of the temptations inherent in sexual brokenness for seeking a more welcoming kingdom rather than persistently throwing themselves into our moat? What if we really loved people as much as we say we do? That would be a love that could never be matched by the consumptive love of the other kingdom.

Ears are itching and hearts are twitching. Tears are falling and we're afraid to wipe them away as if the proximity might make us unclean. Soon the crying become the smiling, finally free to be who they were born to be? And we turn away to more fish in the sea.

Pro-gay theology is the myth that keeps on growing, casting a lengthy shadow, yearning to squelch the light of truth.

If you really want to know how to move beyond your feelings and share the truth, let me know.

God Bless,

Thom
authorthomhunter@yahoo.com

(Want to know more? Order Thom's book: Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do at Amazon.com..)

Is it Time to Come Out of the Closet?

(Note: October 11, 2011 was designated by the Human Rights Commission as National Coming Out Day. People who consider themselves gay or lesbian were encouraged to "come out" to their friends and family. Has there ever been a better time in our nation's history for Christians to learn how share the truth about homosexuality with compassion for those who struggle?)

I stumbled, fell and cried out but my brother shied away

And I found myself alone in silence, wishing he would stay.

He quickly turned the corner, as if he hadn't realized,

I'd turned and looked to him in pain, with pleading tear-filled eyes.

I saw my brother stumble so I quickly looked away.

I'll ask him how he's doing on perhaps a better day.

I heard my brother crying but I quickly realized

He'd not be wanting me to see the tears that filled his eyes.

So we're just keeping distance till again it all seems right

And saying a little prayer or two before turning in at night.

No reason now to get involved, there's nothing much to say

Both blind; both fine; both better off this way.

-- Thom Hunter

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. -- Galatians 6:2

"Imagine, if you will," comes the Rod Serling voice, "A church in the middle of a very ordinary town, with stained glass windows, cushioned pews and friendly faces at the door.  We've arrived on a very ordinary Wednesday night, just in time for the pre-prayer-service meal.  Elaine sits in her usual place in the middle of a long table, in the middle of the fellowship hall . . . in the middle of it all."

"Did you hear about  . . . . ?" said Elaine, her voice trailing off a bit as she lowers it, looks side-to-side, and begins to share the news with those in hearing range.  Her fork is poised in the air over a plate of ham, sweet-potatoes, peas and carrots and a buttered piece of bread.  Elaine is one of the best of the best when it comes to church gossip and ears quickly bend her way.

"Elaine, you're just like a dog returning to its vomit, I see," says the pastor in a calm and steady voice as he approaches her table.

Elaine stops, puts down her fork, squirms in her seat a bit, gathers her plate and purse and moves on down to another table.

"Well . . . I never!" she says.  "Did you hear what he said to me?  You will never believe."

Again, the voice interrupts:  "Elaine, you gossip because you think it is fun, but you're just like a dog returning to its vomit."

Elaine, now in shock, sits, ponders, sets her fork gently down beside her plate and says "You're right, Pastor.  I confess to the sin of gossip and I ask for your forgiveness and help in repentance."

"Sorry, Elaine," he answers.  "This has gone on too long. You've confessed before and here you are, at it again.  I don't think it is possible for you to ever stop gossiping.  And, while I say this completely out of love for you, I think it's best for all of us if you just leave and not come back. We'll vote on it Sunday night, but basically, I think the tribe has spoken."

So Elaine puts out her torch, which means in this case, stifles her tongue, and leaves immediately.  Life goes on, post-Elaine.

Obviously, this is a greatly-exaggerated account.  Sin is more subtle; response more nuanced. The Elaines among us are not that blatant in their sin; the pastors not that direct in dealing with it; the church members not that silent an audience.  But, in real life, there is a great deal of confusion about how to deal with sin among the believers, particularly when the sin seems to have so firm a grip and especially when that sin is something that we can not easily dissect or dig down to the root cause. We see it flourish and, like a weed among the flowers, we want to pluck it out.

Of course the pastor does not intervene and Elaine is not removed.  She finishes her pie and her story with a flourish, confident that her words will be repeated by others, giving her a sense of belonging she can't seem to find any other way.  She keeps on top of all the latest because she needs to be needed and knows no other way. Her sin is gossip; her fear is loneliness.  We should start with her fear.

Andy gets antsy about halfway through the prayer meeting, looks at his watch and yawns.  The pastor noticed Andy was pretty bleary-eyed already when he came into the church, but Andy just explained that he'd been glued to his computer all afternoon, trying to get a big project done. Andy was anxious to get home and finish the project in his home office:  feasting on XXX pornography over the Internet.

Like a dog returning to its vomit?  Perhaps.  Extending a season of fun? Maybe. More likely feeding a secret addiction that has wrapped itself so tightly around Andy that most of life has now been squeezed from him and he is bound to meaningless images and fantasies that strip him of any dignity and slowly drain from him all the sensitivity he once had toward his wife and children. 

Lindsey is 17.  As usual, she has worn her favorite long-sleeved turtle-neck pull-over to church and sits in a silent, pouty position at the far end of a back-of-the-room pew.  She is listening in, but looking down as she rubs her arms and twists her hands, fighting back tears, but smiling weakly whenever she's approached.

"Are you okay, honey?" a sweet voice asks.

"I'm fine," she answers, mustering her familiar weak smile, her bangs hanging over her dark eyes.

"Well, of course you are, sweetheart," comes the reply.  "And God loves you just the way you are."

Lindsey will cut herself in the bathroom when she gets back home, inflicting another physical scar for the pain she feels inside and can't reveal.  And then she'll give her mom and dad a peck on the cheek and lay in bed wishing for sleep, longing for peace.

Terrance skipped church altogether on this Wednesday night and is walking along the trails of the city park a few blocks from his home as the sun slowly dips behind the trees.  He collapses on a wooden bench and puts his head in his folded arm, looking every bit the part of a breathless runner who has pushed himself to the limit and needs to rest.  He is at his limit.  He hates himself because he is not like the other boys at his high school and he doesn't know why and he's afraid to ask himself or anyone else.  The dark descends like a comfortable blanket, hiding him.  He wants to cry. 

"If I'm gay, I may as well just kill myself before my Dad does."

Prayers are wrapping up in the comfy sanctuary.  All the pending surgeries have been covered.  Missions have been blessed.  Traveling mercies extended.  All have confessed their weekly falling short, and everyone is ready for a little free time in front of the TV.  The DVRs are getting full and need relief.

Elaine and Andy and Lindsey and Terrance are sinners, awash in their own shame, hardened by the indifference of the Christians around them, those who are to be known by their love.  All four need surgery.  They're all a mission.  They're traveling . . . and they really need some mercy.  Their lives are playing out like the scripted dramas everyone is rushing home to submerge themselves in . . . but they're real.  And they're Christians . . . and God does indeed love them just as they are.  But if He loves them too much to leave them there, why don't we? If he can acknowledge their sin and respond with His grace, why can't we? If He can look straight into their hearts, why are we looking over their heads?

Maybe they should come out of their closets?  Elaine should just confess that she's a sad, lonely and empty woman who wants attention so badly she will spin tales for it.  Andy should just come clean and tell everyone that instead of having real relationships, he slips himself into naked fantasies, in vulgar opposition to the life he models in his deacon role.  Lindsey should explain that she is punishing herself at 17 because at 16 she gave her body away to a 19-year-old who said he loved all of her . . . and then left her to go love all of someone else.  And Terrance?  Terrance should share about his self-hatred, acknowledge the sense of rejection that triggers his misguided search for his masculine identity through improper same-sex interaction and his concerns about an eroding resistance to temptation.

Unsaved?  Not Terrance.  Not Lindsey . . . or Andy or Elaine.  Precious ones, never alone in their sin, but accompanied by a Savior who knows Elaine could spread blessings instead of gossip, that Andy could live and love in reality, deleting the addictive fantasies that have claimed his mind, that Lindsey could forgive herself and wash away the mistakes of her past, that Terrance could see himself as God sees Him, instead of seeing himself as the broken one with no choice but to submit to the world's definitions.

Christians all, but guarding secrets in what should be the most loving and healing environment on earth, the church.  These four represent so many Christians who struggle in secret with the things of this world, surrounded by people who should be safe and welcoming, known by their love, pouring out forgiveness, willing and able to hear the confessions, extending grace, offering a shoulder for comfort, a hand for support, a word of encouragement and a pledge of accountability through the walk of repentance. While he should be hearing "come on out," the sinner in the secret closet sees himself more like the spider who tiptoes through the space below the door only to find someone waiting with a broom and a dustpan on the other side.

For most sinners, the fear of what will happen if they emerge from the closet is greater than the fear of the sin locked inside there with them. In my decades-long struggle with homosexuality, habitual cover-up had a greater hold on me in some ways than did my habitual sin. The what-might-happen seemed more threatening than the what-was. I would do almost anything to keep from being discovered . . . and eventually I convinced myself that exposure of my sin would harm more people than the practice of it. Suffering through the struggle in silence was better than the risk of real-time retribution. In time, all of it -- the secrecy and the revelation resulted in an avalanche of epic proportions and seemingly uncountable victims.  There was no longer enough room in my closet for all the junk I accumulated. It was spilling out the door, leaving a trail of sinful crumbs down the hall. 

Maybe we should all come out of our closets?  We who accepted the sacrifice of Jesus so we would not die in our sins.  We who praise Him for His love and hoard our own, as if He could not provide it amply to extend to others.  We who mutter "there but for the grace of God go I" and then stand by and watch others go there.  We who crave mercy but are too distracted to share it.  We who are so clean, washed as white as snow, startled into silence by the stains of others.  Snug in our eternal life, we watch others die around us.  We who walk in the light, but quench it in our closets of comfort.

Do we, for some reason, think our callousness about the ravaging toll sin takes on our brothers and sisters somehow shows us to be strong . . . because we are unwavering in our righteousness . . . and our determination to keep our hands clean?

God knows what the Elaines and the Lindseys and the Andys and the Terrances and the Thoms are going through, how they got there, and when and if they are going to get through it and beyond it. And He also already knows how He will use their struggle for His glory and to accomplish His will. Maybe they're not so happy about the journey on which He has allowed them to embark, but he knows how long the tunnel is and who can help them make it through. He also knows already whether you are going to respond or reject. He knows whether you will venture out of your safe closet to help them clean up theirs.

If "they," the observant non-believers -- whoever they are and we really should want to know -- are to know us by our love, then we may never be known.  Not if we cannot bring ourselves to embrace the broken ones that Christ has placed within easy reach:  the Elaines, Andys, Lindseys and Terrances that pull themselves together enough to come into this place in hope there will be more than peas and prayers.

We can only blame it on culture for so long . . . and then we need to unfold our shoulders and bear the load.  We need to stop giving in, declaring hopelessness, wagging our heads with faces curved by condemning grimaces, removing the sins that might taint us by driving the bearer from our midst.

In truth, some Christians do reflect the love of God and display His grace . . . but they need some reinforcements. The ever-increasing wounded who can only be healed through the love of Christ, shared without restraint by the redeemed.

As imperfect as our church may be, these sinners will not find something better beyond our walls. They do not wash away sins "out there," they celebrate them and proclaim them as identity, taking pride. If we see our brothers sinning, but dismiss even the slightest hint of a true desire to repent and fold our arms in front of us in  in defense instead of wrapping our arms around their shoulders, it is we who have surrendered, not they.  Will it be warmer out there around the fire of distorted acceptance?  Shall we just wish them "god speed," and give them no reason to even continue to believe there is a God . . . who lives inside us?

Come out of the closet.  Andy's pornography addiction will not defile you when you make a plan to call him up and check on him and set up some time to get together for healthy distraction.  Lindsey's past looseness will not topple you from your purity when you listen to her cry and tell her that not only does God love her, but you do too . . . and that you will stay by her side as she walks out of her past. You will not become gay by standing with Terrance as he searches for the person God created him to be and walk with him through the trials and struggles of seeking wholeness. You won't lose your reputation by loving Elaine and listening to the truthful needs of her heart as she shifts to sharing blessings. Your love might be one she shares.

Jesus was a gentle savior who reached out his hands to those in pain, who knew the secrets of the strugglers and did not turn away, who stooped down to lift up, who risked his own reputation to help others build a new one. He knew how to love . . . and He told us to be like Him. 

We're so often not.  Maybe that's why we're in the closet.

In His pain, he freed us all.  In our pain, we bind others up in theirs.  Unable to share our own failings, we hide them behind our holiness and increase the intensity others feel by comparison.  In the light of our inflated righteousness, their wretched sinfulness retains a greater grip on them as they strive to keep it from being seen. In the discomfort of our own cover-ups, we overcompensate in pointing at others when their covers are pulled back. We didn't want to know . . . but well . . . now that we do . . . we've go to do . . . something.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. -- Galatians 5:22-23

In our closets, we store the fruit -- love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control -- that would nourish the broken souls that wander around the door.

God must surely wonder how we can be so blessed and so bereft of sharing it.  The abundance is unimaginable, but we bury it instead of investing it. Do we for some reason believe He can't handle all of this?

Some of us are in closets of cloistered Christianity.  Others of us are in closets of condemnation.  Whichever closet you are in, there is no reason to be there.  Not with overflowing grace, unlimited forgiveness, boundless mercy, unfathomable love, enduring healing, eternal peace.

Please come out.  Someone stands at your door and knocks. 

Give Elaine something to really talk about.

God Bless,

Thom

Is your church ready to address the issue of Sexual Brokenness among Christians? E-mail Thom Hunter at authorthomhunter@yahoo.com for more information. You can also order your copy of Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do through Amazon.com.

The Futility of an If-less Life

The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 

-- Matthew 4:3.

I was reminded today how difficult it is for Christians to be Christian. Usually such reminders come by accident, or seeming happenstance, though, as a Christian, I have to accept the fact that today's unsought, unwanted, unappreciated but unavoidable meeting with one of the church leaders from a mystifying moment in my past might have been purposeful, as in God-ordained. Taco to taco.

That's so . . . God.

I have been "blessed?" to witness the worst and the best of Christian behavior, ranging from the wrap-around of real extended grace to the messy and misguided attempts by Christians to go all-out WWJD, most often with people who could care less what Jesus would do because their lives are crying out for us to do something. When we respond from behind our Christian masks instead of risking our Christian skins, our blessings are scorned by the rejecting responses of those we quickly label as rebellious and on ruinous routes to hell. We can easily find that our "you" is showing and our "me" is rising to the surface, as in WWID, major emphasis on the "I."  We don't see the hurt in the other's eyes because of the great pain we ourselves are feeling when our efforts are disdained by those who don't trust or revere us. Believe me . . . I've seen this from both points of view.

We Christians are all, after all, only people, washed and clean but heading smack-dab back into the ever-alluring mud of life. We may forever hope to avoid that slippery slope, but it seems to be a fixed point on many a personal compass. Like moths brought to light or dogs to a fight, we flit about and find ourselves burned or bitten. Indeed, the ever-present inner flaw that leads us into repeated desperate situations is one of the best arguments against evolution. If we were evolving, surely we would do better by now.  Common sense is not much of a savior. Good sense is not really that dependable and certainly not that common. So we find ourselves in and out of situations, depending on our skills at manipulation, even before we realize how God might have intended them to unfold.

That's so . . . human.

When I look back at some of my most drastic falls from grace -- as we humans might characterize them -- I realize that I was always falling into grace, not out of it. Still, no matter how healing the landing might eventually become . . . the fall gets the attention, as we ricochet against the treacherous walls of whatever abyss we have been dancing along the edge of. Looking up from the hard and cold and dark and enveloping bottom of our pit of choice, we ask "why?"  In other words, God, if You really love me, why don't You stop me?

Better yet, we want to know why what we do has to be constituted as a fall in the first place. Could not God have created a constant plane and set us upon it to travel throughout a life that cannot trip us up? Why all these bumps, these curves, these hills and valleys, these disturbing and deceitful detours? If You really are God . . .

That's so . . . shall we say . . . Satan?

If we did not fall, would we ever call?  If we did not slip, would we ever grip?

And there's the rub: that little word "if."

If we would just call, might we not fall?  If we would just grip, might we not slip?

If only. Then perhaps those drastic "falls from grace," would never take place.

For instance, what if in those desperately-seeking-someone days of discovering adulthood I had thought of my Christian friend as a brother and not as a potential source for satisfaction? What if I had seen him as God sees him and not as I wanted to see him? What if I had been to him what God wanted me to be instead of being a me that just wanted? If the if had turned a different way would I have avoided decades of distancing acts that often made God seem but just a shadow? I think I see clearly how those bumps and valleys we call tests and trials emerge onto the paths on which He lays out His plans for us.

What if we open this door . . . instead of that one?

What if we listen to this person . . . instead of that one?

What if we close our eyes and ears and refuse to see or listen to God at all?

What if we choose to stray instead of pray?

What if we hide the Word somewhere far removed from our hearts?

What if we give up and give in instead of giving ourselves to Him?

What if we refuse truth because it confuses the world-skewed view we have learned to accept of ourselves?

What if we demand of God and then use His response to justify our rebellion because He does not turn our invited stones of life into pillows to give us rest?

What if we judge Him by the actions of His people?

What if we pile onto Him all the pain and all the rejection and all the confusion and all the delusion and all the wandering and all the wondering and all the sorrow and all the loneliness and all the fear and all the hate and all the emptiness and all the deceit and all the craving and all the lies and all the arrogance and all the judgment and all the shame and all the guilt and all the hopelessness?

Really . . . what if we did that?  What if we just said to God:  "Take that!"

He would.

He will. It's not a matter of if.

If I were 25 or 35 or maybe even 75 and had never struggled with sexual brokenness, this is the place in this story where I would tell you to just give it all to Him and you won't have to struggle anymore. And you could slap your palm against your forehead and say "duh" and get on with your life. But, as a Christian who struggled and fell so often that down seemed up, I won't do that to you. I know how it feels to be lectured by plank-bearers who cannot see you through the cloud of disdain that replaces grace with grey.

But I will tell you this. The Bible is not joking when it tells us to take up our cross daily and follow Him. That doesn't mean bear the burden; it means die to self and surrender to Him. Every day. It's not a miracle cure; it's a daily dose.

Actually, when Jesus said it, He began with . . . "if."

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 

-- Mark 8:34-35

That's an if we can all live with . . . and an if we cannot live without.


Okay . . . back to the taco. We made a little small talk, asked a few tentative questions, perhaps made a little progress? Perhaps. Perhaps we turned a few stones into bread . . . or burritos.


God Bless,


Thom


If this post was helpful to you or to someone you know, I hope you will order a copy of  my book, Surviving Sexual Brokenness: What Grace Can Do.  The book is also available on Kindle or Nook at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.  Thank you.)