Because Truth Needs to Be Told

Just a warning, I'm going to be pretty upfront with you on this one. Things need to be said and said clearly. 

I was in my early twenties when I had a "homosexual encounter." Nothing more than a kiss, but I didn't like it. (I give great thanks to God for my parents who took me to church every Sunday from the time I could walk and sent me to Christian school. Were it not for that foundation... "Right and wrong" were so deeply ingrained in me, I couldn't even think of enjoying it.) But, I was a prime target. I had always felt as though I didn't belong in girl world: thicker and flatter than the others, not skilled in the art of hair and make-up or petty but refined verbal jabs (I didn't even catch them when they were thrown my way), not beautiful or delicate, eager to play trucks or make mud pies as much as Barbies, poor and dirty and ashamed of the dark secret I carried. I felt more comfortable "being a boy" than I ever felt in a dress. Standing next to my girl friends, I felt like an ape --for years! So many times I wondered how much God really disliked me that, in addition to difficult circumstances, He would give me a body so out of line with every other girl in creation. I felt alone.

I'd like you to just press the Pause button for a few seconds, go back to that first paragraph and count the number of times I used the word "felt." Honestly, that was not intentional on my part. It was, however, the truth. All of that stuff was based on feeling. Now, I'm not saying feelings don't matter --they surely do, God gave them to us to help us in our relationships and to keep us safe-- but feelings are not always in line with truth. We stand on the truth as we give consideration to our feelings. And the truth is God designed me to be female; He formed me in my mother's womb as a female; I have everything a female has, biologically. I am female. My feelings, though they existed, though they may have been quite understandable, they contradicted reality, truth. And it took years before I felt the slightest bit comfortable in my skin, before I ever felt feminine or pretty, before I stopped comparing myself to the shapely, delicate women around me, before I stopped taking on every unkind word and rejection as a commentary on my womanhood (or lack thereof), before I stopped seeking affirmation for my identity in others and began seeking it from the One who loves me and created me for His glory. (Part of that journey includes my husband, who walked beside me as I learned to see myself through his eyes, the eyes of another one who loves me. Pretty cool how God did that, huh?) Through all of this, I developed a fascination with --not attraction to-- the "perfect" female body. I was seeking out pornography in my teens. To be desired; to be sexy like those women. With a simple interest in sexuality and only publisher after publisher eager to sell me a broken and perverse sexuality, came an onslaught of images endorsing homosexuality. As I fell further down the rabbit hole of my feelings, the more likely it seemed I had been the victim of some cruel joke: a male with female parts. When a real live female came along who was not only willing to affirm my feelings, but eager to encourage me to follow them, I bit. But --and once again-- because I knew truth and because, praise God, even as I walked in rebellion, He preserved me, the bait was bitter to me. 

I tell you my story because I wonder how many of your stories began with feelings that simply do not align with truth. Feelings are much easier to follow; truth is usually hard. I tell you my story because I want you to see how easily --without truth-- I could have fallen into that trap, as I believe many have and are now still falling. If you don't believe me, Google "how gabapentin works" or "how game of thrones ended." Before you get any farther than "how g-a" you've already got suggestions like "how gay am I" or "how gay is my dog" (seriously?). Google "am I traumatized." You'd think that was a pretty heavily searched topic, right? #3 after "am I trans" and "am I transgender." Click on "am I trans," and the first site is the always helpful Planned Parenthood telling you You're transgender (or trans) if your gender identity is different from the sex the doctor assigned you at birth. For example, you may be transgender if you were assigned male at birth and know you're a woman. So much wrong with those statements, there's enough for another day, but that's how easy it is to be told what you are feeling or what you decide is more important than what is true.

How easily and how quickly through the worldwide web could I have been convinced all those years ago! How easily and how quickly my fascination, my longing for could have become an attraction had I not been given the foundation of truth in my younger years! How easily and how quickly I became a target for a "gay rights activist" without the help of the media and even before there were gay rights! How is it you think you or those around you or, especially, your children stand a chance in this battle without the Truth of Jesus Christ? Truth, Ladies and Gentlemen. Truth alone is our foundation. Truth alone is the light on our path. Truth alone is Who we follow after. Truth alone is the message we need to give to those we love. 

What Sort of Condition Are You In?

Conditioning. If you're a personal trainer or a personal trainee, conditioning might look like getting up at the crack of dawn, donning some workout clothes and a solid pair of kicks, and hitting the track. You're probably watching what you eat, getting plenty of sleep, and monitoring your results. Your hobbies might include things that supplement your workouts: playing basketball or hiking. And you might be preaching the gospel of great health to others wherever you go. If you're our dog, conditioning is not so complex: you jump up every time the phone rings because you know the pizza guy always calls before he shows up at the front door. It's that simple.

The difference between a personal trainer's conditioning and Luci's conditioning is Luci's conditioning does nothing for her reactivity to other dogs. It may prepare her for the arrival of a pizza crust treat, but it won't keep her from losing her mind when another dog is within twenty feet of her. It won't prevent her jumping up on people who don't care to be greeted in such a manner, or sniffing her own farts, or forming puddles of drool unrivaled by any of our previous dogs, or getting the zoomies late at night in our narrow upstairs hallway, or any of her other less desirable behaviors. It's a mere trick, a specific behavioral response to a specific external stimulus. It transforms nothing.

The "conditioning" of a Christian life is much more like that of one who wishes to transform their health, even their life, and maybe its length and quality. It is discipline and a complete change in motivation and perspective; it is dedication and commitment to something --to Someone much larger than ourselves or our own wants. So much more, even than the conditioning of the world's best trainers, the journey of a Christian through this life has at its core a higher power, a richer and more faithful resource, an eternal purpose, and a more glorious guarantee of complete transformation: the Holy Spirit. 

As a child, when I heard God's gospel preached, I responded. Like our dog craving pizza crust, I was lured by the benefits: I wanted to escape hell and I wanted to please the adults around me. But, also like Luci, I really didn't have context: responding to a message and obeying each time my conscience was pricked was my "trick." I was not transformed. 

In later years, I began to see the need for a more comprehensive training program, something that would change me, change my life, change outcomes. I'd begin attending church. I'd crack open my Bible once in a while. I'd pray --sort of; I'd talk to someone I called "God," telling Him how messed up, how unfulfilled I was, and how my life was in ruins. From time to time, I'd even commit to stop drinking or promise to begin hanging out with "church people," each day --sometimes several times a day-- keeping my eyes peeled for results. But like the trainee who jumps on the scales or measures his biceps every day, the moment I didn't see those instantaneous results, the moment the thought of hanging out with church people became less enticing than partying with "friends," my program fell apart. My motivation depended on the fulfillment of my agenda; I was my own resource for discipline and implementation, and transformation was something I believed naturally occurred after doing something right.

When I was forty, I came face to face with a situation I couldn't control. I was weak and it was powerful. I was small and it was big. Transformation wasn't something I was looking for, but something thrust upon me. Like it or not, life was changing; in order to travel this new strip of road, I needed Someone who would have my back, and I turned to the One I knew to be Truth. Before Him I fell, and He began to show me just how wrong I was --not in a way that caused me to fell condemned or silly, but the way a loving father takes a child up in his arms in forgiveness and sets them back down in newness. The Holy Spirit became to me my Comforter and my Guide, encouraging me and leading me in the right direction, developing in me a love for Jesus that I'd never had. I was going to church, I was reading my Bible, I was learning who God is, I was talking and listening to Him, but there was more. There was change happening in me, change that behavioral modifications can facilitate, but not the depth of change they can bring about. There was a response to external stimuli --like Luci's response to a ringing phone, a change in patterns --like that of one seeking physical transformation, but there was the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and, by God's grace, a surrender to His conditioning and its results that only He can provoke.

So, where are you in your conditioning? Where are you in this journey toward health and life and the promise of being made new? Are you answering the call? Hitting the gym? Or are you seeing results?

Forget About the Signs

I wrote about signs a few weeks back. Something along the lines of, "you'll know it was meant for you when you have it," or "you'll know you're where you need to be when you get there." It occurred to me only an hour or two later that this season we are in is a season of looking for signs. Several months ago --about two years ago, if I really stop to think about it-- God told Scott and I to prepare for something. It was something we'd wanted to do years and years before, but we never seemed to move on it. When we heard God's voice calling us to it in 2021, I wasn't quite sure. So many things had changed, we were older ("on the downstroke" as Scott says); but "Just get ready," was the word I received. As I said, it's been two years of preparations, and every time we seem to build up momentum, something else scurries out from the roadside, and the brakes are applied. At this present time, we're barely cruising. We've encountered another roadblock with regard to another situation. That has our undivided attention at the moment. But as we address this new delay, we watch. Are we to go with the flow, rest, and simply watch for the lesson in this? Are we to explore new possibilities so that other projects might begin moving again? Is this God's way of redirecting our attention to things that may be priorities to Him? Are we nearing the end of our current season, and being given precious days to pour everything we have into it before moving on? Will this roadblock simply move as it has in times past --no explanation, no obvious change in anything else? God, can you show us, give us even a glimpse of what we are to do, of what will be?

"Signs" make it so easy to trust. What do we do? When do we do it? So does knowing how things will happen. Maybe He'll do this, making way for that. I started writing this article on Thursday and the following week received this from a friend: 

I wish God would tell us the “why” or at least give us a timeframe. It would certainly make hardships more bearable and in my case would’ve given me more patience 😕(always room for guilt).

I could so feel that! We all want to know. We tell ourselves knowing would make it easier in some way. But would that really be the case? I think the words of my friend answer that question: she may have had more patience if she knew just how much more she had to endure. Being given patience is different from having patience developed in you. Life almost certainly would have been easier, but not necessarily better. Knowing may allow us to make it to the finish line, but does it teach us to finish well? Sort of like the man given a fish: he eats for a day but has no idea how he will eat tomorrow. I think it's sort of ironic that none of us wishes to be a puppet, none of us likes to be told what to do, but the minute we think we're in over our heads, we begin praying for things like direction, clarity, signs.

I'm being encouraged today to stop looking for signs or answers, to simply embrace this season we're in and look for My Father instead. He invites each of us to lean into Him, to talk to Him, and He is faithful to respond. 

PRIDE

When I was raising small children, I was torn. They come into a harsh and fallen world, so many strikes against them, so many things looking to consume them. Most days I felt like I was getting it all wrong. And then one (or both) of them would do something completely unacceptable: pick a fight, take something that wasn't theirs, tell a lie (and that was a whole 'nother thing: "detecting" a lie without my having any discernment whatsoever --some of their tales were Jim Dandys, though!). I knew it was time for discipline. How much? In what way? What about grace? It was difficult. These were little people whom I loved with all my heart! I never wanted to crush my children, but limits and truth are essential. I wish I'd known then what I know now; I wish I'd stood on the truth of Scripture and leaned on the wisdom of the Spirit at that time. It would have made the things I had to do so much more sure and so much less difficult. This is what Jesus has designed for you; this is what Jesus has designed for me. Let's walk in those things together. We won't always get it right, but we are gonna live trying. It is in that spirit that I write today.

There are people I love living in sin. They have believed a lie. Because many churches refuse to stand on the truth. Because it's easier than fighting against it. Because they want what they want until they don't, and they've been told there are no consequences, easy to go back; everything fluid. Because there are flags and shows and clothing and an entire month dedicated to saying it's okay. Because, because. But it's a lie. Some have heard all the "clobber" verses; some have never heard a one. I myself have heard a few verses I didn't like when I was looking for reasons to say what I wanted to say and think what I wanted to think and do what I wanted to do. It didn't make them any less right; it didn't make me any less wrong. Even when I felt that twinge of conviction, my very next thoughts were What is getting out of this going to look like? What am I going to have to leave behind? What will my now friends say? But this is home! And the response to all of those things in brief are: Messy but with time you will see it's worth it. Everything but nothing that matters. All kinds of terrible things, but you will choose to love them. No, no it's not; it just feels like home the same way "sheep's clothing" feels like the real sheep.

This, of course, is PRIDE month. There's no escaping it. Even our local grocery store has it plastered all over their weekly circulars. The irony they have deemed it PRIDE is not lost on me. To continue to believe a lie is foolish; to insist a lie is truth is indeed PRIDE. I will not even tell my children I am proud of them --pleased with something they've done, glad they have achieved something they worked hard to do, but proud? No. Not that it keeps me from pride or makes me any less proud in my heart, but I don't even care to give room to inordinate self-esteem; conceit; arrogance; disdain; lofty self-respect (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 1936). I take very seriously what Scripture says about pride, and I know how inclined I am to compensate for my shortcomings with telling myself grandiose stories of my importance and self-worth. Besides, in a world full of words, the best thing we can tell our children is I'm proud of you, or Be proud of yourself? Maybe that's where the lie began. Be whatever you want to be, affirm it, embrace it! Happiness above all else! Self-acceptance at every turn! It's a lie. And because I love Jesus, because I love you, you have to know that.

To live life in homosexual sin should be as much an abomination to society as to live as an intractable gossip or a compulsive liar --nothing good (truly good) can come of it. To live life in homosexual sin should be as much an abomination to the church as a pastor with a drug problem or a philandering worship leader --it will tear down the church, corrupt the message of the gospel, and souls will perish. Practiced homosexuality, specifically within the church, needs to be addressed in love, not unconditional acceptance. Practiced homosexuality in society needs to be exposed for the lie it is, flags burned, and all remnants of affirmation destroyed. The enemy of our souls --of all souls-- is seeking to destroy lives and ensure the deaths of any who would believe him. As possessors of truth and ministers of reconciliation, it is our responsibility to confront this PRIDE deception and speak to those we love (are called to love!) about their sin and its consequences. To those who are living in homosexual sin, particularly those within the church, I lovingly say Repent, please! Purity is what Jesus is calling you to; love and ambassadorship is what Jesus requires of me. Let's walk in those things together. We won't always get it right, but we are gonna live trying.