Lead Us Not Into Confusion

If we had it to do all over again

We'd make so much better decisions.

Only opening doors we should enter in

Building lives without all the pretensions.

With character above reproaching,

And no reason to second-guess,

With this sin no longer encroaching

Doing nothing we need to confess.

And, if they had the chance to redo it,

Might forgiveness be not so held back?

And peace found by those who pursue it?

Would grace not be calling us back?

The "we's" and the "they's" can begin again

When both set aside all the fear,

So the broken begin to mend from within

While the brother walks steadily near.

I remember the first night I did not go home, so lost in wandering, drowning in unconnected thoughts, dissolving into confusion far from resolution . . . and then, in the light of the morning dawn, I turned a key and walked into the ever-changed familiar. Everything looked the same, but nothing was as it had been or perhaps ever would be again. I had taken a step into a place I had resolved to never know and now it was known. It did not feel like a tumble; there was not the pain of a stumble. I did not feel the uncertainty that comes with a slip, where everything beneath is gone and you come smashing down. I did not experience the flailing helplessness that comes from tripping, where the hands fly out to reduce the effect of the fall.


No . . . I set the keys down on the desk and took a morning nap, a shower, went to class, propped myself up on my elbows and stared forward.  Changed.


I was a college student, living in the dorm, surrounded by some students who alternated nights between fraternal drunkenness and dark room stoniness and surrounded by some students who, like me, carried with them an inherited and weighty moral compass against which we struggled, but with which we often righted ourselves. We might drift into defiance, but we knew how the needle pointed and we would find our way back, for the most part, unless, of course, we took a trail that, in it's counterfeit satisfaction, seemed like it was leading us to a new-found home, an un-discovered due-North that just seemed right, even if for all the wrong reasons


Fast forward a few decades and the magnet still may pull, but the disastrous memories of the journey and the cost of wishful wandering add weight to the compass and I realize it was not merely for direction but protection. When we know why there is a direction that is better to go, then we need not know what awaits where we do not need to go.


But I do know. The rather nots are naught.


There is some great value in knowing when you've taken a wrong turn, even if you just keep going. That history, the significance of the moment, is something to which you can return. It helps you to know what was before and after. I fear that those pauses in life, where we weigh the internal, external and eternal consequences of rejecting what we know for what we want, are becoming quaint descriptions of the less-enlightened people of the past this generation perceives us to have been. How silly it must seem to so many today who embrace their sexuality with abandon to know that at some point for us -- or at least me -- embracing my sexuality -- the broken sexuality of me -- meant a greater abandonment, that the choice bore the weight on a foggy night as if I had chosen death over life. A choice that in each morning light seemed less and less momentous, but nevertheless remained in my life like some creeping plague that could not finish its job, not like some new-found identity.


In the moral lapse of the elapse of time, we've somehow taken the wrongs and made them the rights of all. The line between what Christians perceive as wrong because "the Bible tells me so," and what the world says should be right for people "because their heart tells them so," has become so blurred we barely blink anymore. We sacrifice the eternal peace of a changed heart for the fleeting fun of a satisfied one. I'm sorry, but I don't think wanting everyone to be happy is a sincere motivation for a Christian. I know some people who claim to be happy who are in total bondage. They claim to find solace in being bound. Shall I let them twist away until the menacing knot closes too tight and they are gone? Will they be happy in death, and can I find peace in that?


As I have said before, when I was doing wrong, I never perceived it as right, or even that I had a right to do it. I did it not because I had to or should, but because I wanted to and could. That doesn't make it right. And I didn't do it to fulfill some God-given destiny or proclaim some God-ordained identity. I did it to determine my own destiny and define my own identity. Very non-Christian is that, is it not?


As my generation grew up, we determined not to be so up-tight, and in the process of loosening, we became less up-right. Consequently, we raised a generation intent on discovery and acceptance to the point where the compass was passed not to a new generation but into the past, or into a drawer for safekeeping, I hope, so it can be called upon again when the strayness takes its toll and we throw ourselves into a "where-do-we-go-from-here" panic. 


We need to turn back.


As we stand on the brink of a blinding enlightenment that wipes out truth in its warm glow -- embracing same-sex marriage, preparing toddlers for transgendering, celebrating gayness as if it were the true intent now just revealed -- look to the left and the right and see who is holding our hands and taking note. 


An emerging generation which will not have to confront confusion and seek answers to the questions that should plague them. It is a perversion of "all is well" to "all is right." It won't stop there, of course, because all is never right as a new right emerges, a new wrong converges. Even now, when we say that homosexuality is wrong because the Bible tells us so, we are "wrong" because we are hateful. If we speak truth out of love, we are branded loose cannons and dangerous backwards-thinking irrelevants. We're told to get with the plan at the expense of what we know is God's plan.


Christians are not called to be set-apart for the sake of convenience. We should not pick and choose what stands we take based on the response we might get. Why invite the complications of bent belief? Things are either true or they are not. Should we negotiate faith in God's Word based on the pain of the process of following it?


Little boys and little girls will make wide-sweeping decisions of all kinds based on whether they have been taught that truth is truth all the time or truth is truth when called upon to support our application of it. How often do we believe something is true because we just think that is what our concept of a loving God would do? What results from colliding concepts? Confusion. And the little ones may choose their truth based on some earthly attraction, not on a heavenly concept. Can there be any truth at all if we are forced to choose between truths? Obviously, one is not.


A few weeks ago I was in Kansas City and toured the World War I Museum. I was amazed at how vicious a war it was, so costly to so many in so many countries, and intended to be the war to end all wars. One thing struck me most, and that was the direct and clear and harsh effort made in the United States to define the enemy, to build a fierce determination bordering on total elimination if necessary. Posters and slogans were built around the idea that the only way to defeat the enemy was to hate the enemy in full resolve. It sounds horrible when you put faces to it, but the war was fought and the enemy vanquished . . . for a time.


I fear we have put too many faces on the face of our enemy. Instead of seeing sin, we see instead the sadness of a struggling son or daughter or friend or brother and we think that if we battle, we are putting a bayonet into their hearts. In the interest of love, we provide comfort to the enemy, which is not flesh and blood and is not kin or friend, but foe. Are we so limited as Christians that we can not be truthful and compassionate, as if we do not face our own truths of secret sins and pant for compassion?


For the sake of a generation that already asks fewer questions, can we not get it together on our answers?

Be honest. God loves us all, and He wants us all to be like His son, Jesus. That means we lay down our lives and sacrifice our desires and take on His desires for us. And, in all honesty, that does not include homosexuality, adultery, pornography or any sexual perversion, no matter how it pleases us or anyone else.

Be an example. Yes, of course, I and many others, have failed at this. But . . . let the redeemed say so. If you cannot be an example of life-long righteousness, shine in redemption and model repentance.

Be attentive and responsive. This is not someone else's problem. The current common practice within churches of passing the sexually-broken on to para-church ministries or psychologists, therapists and psychiatrists is shameful. Somehow we think man can address better in theory what God has addressed in truth?

Be diligent. Don't just scratch your head and mutter something about hell in a hand-basket. While children still listen, long before the face the fork in the road on a late-night alone, be uncompromising in projecting the promise of truth.

Sometimes, in the back of my mind, as I write, I hear a nagging voice saying "silence. . . you hypocrite. Look at your life. What gives you the right to say these things, having indulged and dodged for so long?"


That. That gives me the right. Truth becomes clearer when you have fallen for the lie.


Let's not lead this generation into confusion.


God Bless,


Thom

These Scars Too Shall Fade

A so-called sexual revolution unfolded back in the '60s, making for a very unnerving time for parents of those coming of age . . . and a very unnerving  time for those coming-of-age as they witnessed the unwinding of their parents's sexual mores.  Fifty years later, the revolution looks quaint in comparison to the sexual submersion of the culture in which we live today, which is, we may as well admit, anything but cultured. The scars of the '60s are manifesting themselves into the struggles of this second decade.


The losses mount. 


The scars are deep.

I have a barely visible scar on my right wrist, the only remaining evidence that I was ever a fry-cook at the Sonic Drive-In, a grease burn from overzealous grill-scraping.  I have a scar on my right shin from a bicycle wreck in the sixth grade, evidence of believing a Stingray bicycle could fly.  I have a scar on my right shoulder, evidence of too many dislocations, resulting in the surgical placement of a pin, which has worked quite well. I have a surgical scar in my midsection too, evidence mainly of painful staple removal.  

Okay . . . so now you can help identify me if I am ever found dead somewhere without my wallet.

I have a scar on my heart too . . . and it matches closely a few I've left on other hearts here and there, evidence of scant resistance to past temptations, poor decisions, deception (of self and other selves), carelessness, selfishness, hopelessness. Days of blind wandering produced bumps and bruises that only slowly healed and may not ever disappear. 


The visibly-scarred go through a period of adjustment, a time when they believe that when anyone looks at them, they see the scar first and foremost, and,  for a while, it seems they forever will. Then, one day, it seems the scar, even still visible, is almost not there; the person behind it overwhelms it. So it should be, and can be, with those who are scarred spiritually and emotionally, even when it is the searing mark of sin. When people practice compassion, perfected with truth, the scars become transparent and the damaged soul shines through.

The past becomes the past . . . but some parts of it do not fade fast enough or move far enough into it, insisting on clinging to us like a creeping vine as we stumble forward out of struggle and into surrender.

How odd are the things of our past that cling to us like empty shirts pinned on a clothesline, blowing in the wind and flapping in the breeze, pulling at the pins, straining to fly loose and either take to the sky or fall to the ground, but bound instead, unable to choose, limited by their lifelessness.  They are but pieces of fabric pulled together by thread and shaped into a shirt, a covering. And that is as some of us are, lifeless, pinned to a stretched line of lingering sin we cannot forget or get beyond.

Do you ever wonder why some things from your past remain embedded in your memory and come up like an instant replay, over and over again, as if, with repeated viewing, there might somehow come some sense as to why they are so visually permanent?  It is like if we relive them again perhaps they will have a different ending or a better explanation, as though our vision will suddenly clear up and catch something we never saw before.  We don't recall everything, but surely there is a reason for every recall to which we cling, depositing it in our memory bank as if it were too valuable to relinquish.  For instance, I can recall my father's smile, yet I rarely saw one past my childhood.  I haven't pulled a crawdad from a creek in decades, yet when I close my eyes I can see the pinchers and watch myself carefully remove them from the bacon-bait on the end of the string, like an old black-and-white movie with a happy ending, little boy fingers pinch-free.

My father's smiles and creepy crustaceans are all wound up in how I came to be, and how I either flap in the gentle breeze or fall to the ground in a wrinkled heap.  It is all a part of the mystery of strength and weakness, of pleasure and pain, of defeating misery and soaring melody, of unending sadness and unequaled joy.  Of good and evil.  Of self-centered sin and unselfish selflessness.  It is the weight of who I am.  And those who know me . . . or of me . . . pick and choose and reconstitute at will, coming up with some images I recognize and some I don't.

Among those memories that I replay is an odd one from my middle school days.  Armed with a treasured hall pass, I made my way to the restroom, pushed open the door and stepped inside.  The lights went out, an arm went around my neck, placing me in a choke-hold and throwing me to the floor.  A bigger kid said something I did not understand, kicked me and walked out into the bright hallway leaving me lying on the floor.  I sat in stunned silence for a minute, stood, brushed myself off, wiped away a tear I would tell know one of, and made my way back to class and said nothing.

Why do I remember?  Well, for one, it was frightening.  Two, it made no sense.  Three, it diminished me to a little kid in the dark.  Four, it was never reconciled; I don't know why he did it.  Five, I know I was the victim of whatever weight he bore inside. It wasn't fair, but I couldn't fix it so I never forgot it.  It is history, but it doesn't fade with time.  It isn't watered down by the millions of memories since.

 I was never one to become really absorbed in history.  In school, I tended to memorize facts for tests and occasionally got enthralled by a historical shocker here and there, like the Salem witch trials . . . or a queen being be-headed . . . or the Holocaust . . . or the invention of penicillin.

I know . . . those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  Boy, don't I know.

A few years back -- more back than I want to acknowledge -- I was set to co-write a speech with my boss for an executive in our company who was preparing to address a group of regulators about the great damage being inflicted on us by what we had determined were unreasonable laws.  As we walked back from the executive's office with our mandate to produce something memorable and hard-hitting, Dennis, my co-worker, got all excited and began to frame the speech.  He had decided we would frame it around the Peloponnesian War.  Snore.

I pictured our boss at the podium as the regulators dozed off and fell from their chairs into the aisles, dreaming as they went down of more laws they could pass just to punish the speechwriters.  Dennis clearly loved history and thought there was no limit to how it could be applied or what we could learn from it. I could clearly see I was going to become a Peloponnesian victim.  Fortunately for me, Dennis became distracted and the war was edited from the final draft.

No doubt you know that the Peloponnesian War, which Athens lost to the army led by Sparta, brought an end to the golden-era of Greece about 400 years before Christ.  Okay, if you do know that, you paid attention in class somewhere in the past when I was gazing out the window, probably absorbed in the rapidly-advancing war within myself, the one that would manifest into a history that also beings with "P," as in "personal."  The tests that come with that one can't be passed by memorizing a few facts and dates.  Nor can they be revised as time goes on.  Learned from?  Indeed.  Still, even with the learning, there is often a repetitive process in personal history that threatens to bury us under the weight of who we've been.

Regret:  an intelligent or emotional dislike for personal past acts and behaviors.
Remorse:  Moral anguish arising from repentance for past misdeeds; bitter regret.
Repair:  to restore to a sound or healthy state; to make good.
Remove:  to do away with; eliminate, as in remove a stain.

We can regret.  We can express remorse.  We can work within ourselves to repair.  We can struggle to remove all evidence of the stain of bad decisions and thoughtless deeds.  Yet . . . there they lay, waiting for an unforgiving finger to push the rewind button and replay them and remind us of what we perceive as our unworthiness.  Did too much to too many.  And, as if energized by the retelling, the past roars back into our minds and drags us into unrelenting real-life repetition.  The weight of who we were is constantly struggling against the weight of who we are in a tangled wrestling match designed to keep us down on the mat.

We are forgiven.  When we ask.  Which is an integral part of regret, remorse, repair and remove.

Why is it that the unwillingness of men to forgive and forget so crushes the immeasurable grace of God's willingness to forgive and restore?  And why is it that our own inability to forgive ourselves outweighs everything and slides in from all sides to suffocate us and pull us down in weakness when it is clear we are meant to soar in strength?

We're all broken.

And the truth is, even in our own brokenness, even when we want to take full responsibility; sometimes we're clearly disappointed with God.  Like David in Psalms, we want to know why He is so silent when we are so filled with groans.  We want to know why He feels so far away.  And, you know what? He's fine with us asking.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?  -- Psalms 22:1

And yet, in a later Psalm, David says:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you. -- Psalms 139:17-19

Maybe we need to wake up and realize that He truly is always with us, incredibly faithful.  Even in those times when we are not very pleasing, he is always ready to welcome us back.  Whether we are being slammed to the hard floor by an assailant who comes sneaking up behind us in the dark . . . . whether we are waging our own inner war . . . whether we are just lapsing into the near-coma state of numbness that accompanies failed attempts at overcoming an unwanted sin, He is there.  Whether . . . whatever.  And the silence we sometimes think unbearable?  Were it not for a reason, He would be shouting.  We just need to trust.

And not only is He faithful . . . but He provides a way out.  When we are exhausted by the relentless pull of sin or when we are swallowed up by the waves of temptation that seize upon us or when we are drowning in the discouragement of our failed attempts, He sees and knows . . . and provides a way out.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. -- 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Do you think there is even the slightest chance that the temptation that is feeding your depravity is a surprise to God?  Do you think that perhaps you have done something so bad and repetitive that He just shakes His head and says "This one is beyond me?  I created the universe, from the tiniest cell to the brightest star, but I'm at a loss."

No.

God is only limited when we limit Him to the scope of our own imagination or the depth of our own experience.  And even then . . . He waits and He anticipates our turning and He hears our groaning and He heals us.  And He lifts the weight of our selves and carries it away and replaces it with His yoke, which is light, so much lighter than what we put ourselves through in our fumbling attempts at self-restoration.

Again, why do we carry these sins on our own, repelling the power of forgiveness?  Well, for one, they're frightening.  Two, they make no sense.  Three, it diminishes us to being little kids in the dark.  Four, it seems not to be reconciled; we don't always know why we do it.  Five, we are embarrassed when we find ourselves to be victims of whatever weight we bear inside. And sometimes we think it just isn't fair, but we can't fix it so we never forgot it.

God can carry the weight.  He is never frightened.  He is never diminished.  He reconciles everything.  He knows why we do what we do.  He can fix all, in His own time and in His own way.  If we trust.

If.

Lay it down, leave it there.  Don't say it can't be done.  Seek the forgiveness of others.  Forgive yourself.  Seek righteousness.  And live.  And the angels will rejoice, regardless of what men say or do.

There is one other thing about those shirts waving in the drying breeze.  They're clean.  The stains are gone. The scars will also fade, as healing comes.


(Have you read "Who Told You You Were Naked?" Well, then, how can you answer the question? I hope you'll order a copy from Amazon.com.)

Obama Takes Brokenness to the Bank

“This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and she, (Michelle) you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others.” -- President Barack Obama , announcing his personal support, as a Christian, for the legalization of gay marriage.

"God is the author of marriage, and we will not let an activist politician like Barack Obama who is beholden to gay marriage activists for campaign financing to turn marriage into something political that can be redefined according to presidential whim." -- Brian Brown, President, National Organization for Marriage, disagreeing with the president.

“I cannot stress this enough to you, but I'll still say it: I'll never be Christian. I think your Bible is nothing more than a piece of literature. I don't believe in your God, and never will.  But I will criticize you when you use your God to "fix" homosexuality, as if it were something to be fixed.” --- An anonymous young friend, tired of it all.

Oh, brother.

Or . . . oh, God?  Yes, He's listening. 

It is confusing enough for people who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction in the cultural soup in which we all marinate.  Now we have to weigh the opinion of a misguided president trading gay hopes for hoped-for votes . . . against a God who actually cares what happens to us beyond election day. Hmmm . . . the wisdom of the creator or the babblings of the great distracter? As always . . . we get to choose.

Don’t get distracted by the cultural-dabbler-in-chief. It may play well in Hollywood, but not so much in the hearts of those who love God. One man’s opinion is, after all . . . one man’s opinion. One man’s soul is one man’s soul. The bottom line is that President Obama’s opinion on this issue is worthless to the man or woman whose soul longs for God. Dismiss Obama’s words as the self-serving pitch they are and continue moving forward, putting it in the same category with all the other distracting justifications you’ve discarded in your search for wholeness. Don’t even pause.

Greater men than President Obama have trivialized the Word of God, or even usurped it, for personal gain. It happens in the pulpit by timid, tepid preachers and it can certainly happen in the White House by vote-hungry presidents. That’s why it is so important to know the truth for yourself so you are not misled by those who place little value on it.

Yes, I know it would be nice to be healed by presidential proclamation, but that doesn’t happen. God heals. Barack is not God. Of course, Obama is appealing to those who do not see a need for healing, nor, if Obama has his way, will they ever. That’s not his concern; re-election is. Truth is on the auction block for the highest donor. While Obama contends the expression of his support for same-sex marriage is a reflection of his faith, it is more likely an act of turning supposed compassion into campaign cash. It's no surprise he followed his pronouncement by jetting to a party in Hollywood at George Clooney's home, where he raised $15 million over dinner. The president's message plays wildly in the land of illusion.

Meanwhile, in the land of reality, we realize that people who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction, or pornography, or heterosexual lust and adultery are sexually broken.

People are broken.

All.

In some way.

Recognizing brokenness is anticipation for wholeness. We can dismiss it, dwell on it, or deal with it.

I have broken only two bones in my lifetime.  A wrist and a rib. The result of each was an increase in pain, a decrease in mobility and a denied sense of helplessness during a time of adjustment and healing. I still have the wrist and the rib and they both work just fine now.


I didn't decide to break my wrist. I didn't plan to break a rib. Absent of decisions or plans, they still broke.  And the rest of me?  It compensated, covered the effects of each break, rose to the occasion, took up the slack, pretended all was well.  


I wasn't doing anything wrong, either time. The wrist, in fact, sacrificed itself in an effort to keep me from tumbling further on the hills and landscape rocks in our backyard as I was weed-eating in preparation for my daughter's birthday party. It backed up the efforts of the palm, which threw itself down in a sacrificial act of protection. Snap, crackle, pop . . . . swell up, stop bending and retreat on a wrist R&R.


In my stubbornness, it took me several hours to grasp that the hand extending from the wrist had no grasp.  "I guess it's broken."


The rib?  Talk about a bone with a mind of its own.  It snapped in a concerted resistance effort against self-improvement.  I was suspended between two weight benches, ankles on one, hands on the other, lifting myself up and down almost effortlessly (yeah . . . ) when all of a sudden it felt as if my workout partner had amused himself by slamming my rib cage with a sledgehammer. 


"Who did that?" I exclaimed, lowering myself to the floor between the benches.


The rib was silent . . . and everyone else just paused and resumed working out. Standing up was torture; breathing was like ingesting needles. My usual self-medication -- denial -- ran in with a rush of adrenaline and I said, as I would do if run over by a road-grader:  "I'm fine."


In about six weeks, I could say "I'm fine," with a straight face, not a grimace of pain.


I guess it really was broken.


Brokenness is usually pretty obvious. A wrist that won't bend; a rib that feels like a blade in your lungs. A bulb that shines no light. A tree limb laying in the yard. A glass in pieces on a hard tile floor. The solutions are usually obvious too: screw in a new bulb; fetch the ax; sweep the floor. The light continues; you have some firewood; your bare feet are safe.  We respond and tidy up and move on.


But what about sexual brokenness?


Well . . . we tend to respond . . . tidy up . . . and move on.  The response can be a muted "oh" or a shocked "Oh . . . my God!."  Tidying up ranges from a-pat-on-the-back-and-a-passing-prayer to a dictatorial list of dos-and-don'ts delivered by a spiritual watchdog dutifully recording progress on a report card, marking pass or fail.  Moving on can be as beautiful as a bless you and an arm around the shoulder as we go together . . . or a disdaining look of disturbed incredulity that becomes a never-knew-you-never-will insistence in denial, a multi-directional scattering to put as much distance between thee and me as possible.


We be movin' on . . . us . . . the unbroken. 


Adios . . . amigos?


There are those who hang close and respond with what they hope will be comforting words: "you'll be fine."  Is that somehow expected to be more comforting than our own well-worn, oft-mis-proved "I'll be fine?"  Trite answers are convenient, but not compassionate.  How about a more honest one: "Yes, you are broken. Like me. But you don't have to be. Me either."


Fortunately for us, we're not a cold, indifferent piece of glass that slips off the edge of a counter and smashes into a million pieces, lacking even the wherewithal to ask for "a little help here, please?"  We're not a tree limb looking dumbly up at the tree with an "I've fallen and I can't get up" plea. And we're not a spent bulb.  We're a dimmer light, perhaps, than we want to be . . . but we are not without the opportunity to shine again.


I'm broken.  Wondrously made we are, with many parts, in need of constant maintenance. Are you a liar? Do you gossip? Do you have a heart of stone when you see the needs of others? Do you lust? Speak profanity? Feast your senses on pornography? Neglect the homeless? Commit adultery? Withhold forgiveness? Are you greedy? Have you turned your back on your mother and father . . . as in not honoring them?  Do you fill your mind with impure thoughts and reject Scripture? Neglect to worship? Feed your pride? Boast a bit?


Yep . . . you're broken.  Let me count the ways. Of course, counting your sins and ignoring mine would certainly be a sign of . . . brokenness.


So why do some of the sexually-broken take such offense at the term?  Well, because some do not see themselves as broken, this distinction being primarily one of faith. If we have faith and we believe God, we know what His Word says about sexuality, and if we go beyond that, we are broken. If we reject faith and believe what the world says about sexuality, we're not. Well, actually, we really are, but since we have no faith, we think we're not, which can seem oddly comforting and permanently condemning. For people in that position, perhaps it is better that they not consider themselves broken, for the world will not repair them. Why?


It's broken.


The world's embrace will not chase away the chill of emptiness for the soul who seeks through faith to be what God intended:  whole.


God gave us "The Word," but we have come up with so many more. We live in interpretive-Babel, never sure in the first place that people mean what they say or even know what they are saying means. So, brokenness -- an acknowledgement that we need God's healing -- becomes instead synonymous with no-goodness, and when we hear it spoken of us by others, we see the broom sweeping up the shattered glass for the trash. How dare you? I'm not that broken.


I am broken.  Thank God.  The result of which has been an increase in pain, a decrease in mobility and a denied sense of helplessness during a time of adjustment and healing.  Not so different than the twisted wrist and the fractured rib. No one could really see those either. On the day I broke the wrist, I made it all the way through my daughter's party without saying a word.  On the day I cracked the rib, I finished the workout.  We compensate for our brokenness until we cannot bear the pain or we cannot walk the walk of wholeness.


But God restores, repairs, redeems and returns me to the shelf. He uses me.  Out of my brokenness, He builds something new. 


But . . . SEXUAL brokenness?  That sounds more like something just doesn't work, for which there are countless remedies and prescriptions. Or have you not watched television or opened your spam e-mail?


What is sexual brokenness? It is any expression of sexuality that is not what God intended. After all, remember, He looked at everything He had made and said "it was good." The path from the garden was clearly a steady decline, swiftly descending from uncomfortable nakedness to homosexuality, pornography, heterosexual sexual addiction, lust, adultery, idolatry . . . and more. That's brokenness.  That's sin. And it is not good.


Maybe we don't like the brokenness terminology because we're so accustomed to discarding broken things. In the spring time, if you drive through the neighborhoods, you see cabinets and bookshelves and chairs and lamps and TVs, perched along the curb with signs:  "take me," or "free."  Why? Usually because they're broken.  Someone picks them up and fixes them and they live on in their inanimate way.


But that's the world.  The world eventually discards everything.


In God's view, brokenness is hopefulness. A broken heart, for instance, is the centerpiece for healing. Hearts are made brand new. A broken spirit soars to greater strength when healed. It is in our brokenness that we turn to Him and He responds. 

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise. -- Psalm 51:17

So, make a sacrifice. Certainly give God your best . . . and certainly give God your brokenness. He knows what it is; He knows what it means; He knows what it's costing you; He knows what to do. He knows you.


Whether we are the president of the United States or just a little presence in a little place there placed by God, that God, in His kindness, reveals to us our brokenness, which brings to us our tears of repentance, which drop to soften the hardened soil of our life in which he plants his new seeds and healing grows.


Brokenness and blessedness. They both begin with "B." As does Barack, a fact which is, of course, merely a distraction. 


We can take brokenness to the bank, or we can take it to the altar.


God Bless,


Thom


(Looking for more information on how to share the truth with compassion for those struggling with sexual brokenness? Purchase a copy of "Who Told You You Were Naked?" The Counterfeit Compassion of Culture on Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com.)