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Everyone is sexually broken. Every man and every woman. No one emerged from the Fall of humankind without gaping fractures in their soul that hugely impact the self emotionally, relationally, physically, sexually. If you think the Fall has not fractured you beyond self-repair, just remember where your current body will be in seventy years or less. Your sexuality is damaged just as much as your physical body.
Sexuality is all about the soul, the heart, the body. Sex is very relational and selfless when practiced within the parameters of God’s design. Apart from God, everything good becomes a counterfeit—even sexuality. It is corrupted. Men and women use sex instead of lovingly give sex. Divorced from God, healthy sexual identity cannot be known because God is the author of our sexuality, indeed, of our whole being. Doesn’t the Bible say that Jesus created us and sustains us by keeping our hearts beating?
So, first, know that even as a believer in Christ, you are sexually broken. God’s Spirit is even now restoring you to the original design as you walk with God and behold His face (2 Corinthians 3:18). Second, know that what needs to be restored sexually in each of us can differ. Therefore, as members of the body of Christ, we do not want to judge others when we need to take the log out of our own eye.
Your sexual brokenness might manifest as a lack of sexual desire, in a withholding of sex from your spouse, as an obsession with sex that functions as a means to satisfy your desire for love through the channel of lust, as a pornography/masturbation addiction, in a fetish lust, using sex with your spouse as a way to fend off your deep fears of not being wanted, in fantasies of sex with underage youth or children, in anger toward self and to the opposite gender through the medium of bondage and sadism or masochism, in same sex attraction, through a distorted sense of sexual identity that leads you to wonder if you should transition to a different gender.
In this post, we will hear from a 24-year-old man named Taylor who goes to your church (you do not know him because he hides well), who looks “fine” on the outside but is struggling with a mighty battle on the inside. He is like the rest of humankind, namely, broken sexually and begging for God to meet him in the darkness of the internal war. His struggle may not be your struggle but listen to his heart with compassion and put yourself in his shoes. Jesus did.
Below is Taylor’s account.
I am on the fence about my sexual identity. I am confused about who I am and who I should be.
I must decide which way I am going to fall off that fence. Soon. There can be no more putting off that decision.
I may not have a choice about what I seem to innately desire sexually, but I do have a choice about what I do with that desire—to embrace it and practice it or to choose what God has for me that gives me something better than my primitive desires.
You see, I am a biological male (many would see me as bi) who has been in sexual relationships with other men, who views lesbian pornography, and who, after a long and rocky journey with faith, now wants to identify as a Christian.
But it’s not so easy. I hear different voices. The culture I swim in every day due to my job, many of my friends, and the current evolution (devolution?) of society tells me to follow my desires. It tells me that I need to finally resolve the dissonance within me and stop fighting against the desires that tell me who I am. I must surrender and embrace my bi or gay identity. Be who I am. Celebrate the sexual identity God has given me.
That is one side of the argument.
The other side of the “argument” is to embrace biblical truth about God’s desire for men and women and pursue the male identity God created within me. I need to embrace God’s plan for me instead of the plan my desires might suggest are true for me.
So, I am on the fence. How can I step off that fence when either choice feels like I’m stepping into oblivion? It feels like a mammoth decision that will take me down very different paths–for a lifetime.
While I walk the fence, I have a fear that some might find odd: I fear that people will see me as gay even if I choose to walk as a child of God who is obedient to Scripture and the identity God created in me. My voice, my mannerisms, my interests (I am an artist), even the way I walk will be seen by others (by the LGBTQ community but primarily the straight community) as evidence of my true identity, namely, that I must be gay. Everything about me will betray me.
Even if I choose to jump off the fence into a life of heterosexuality, my fear is that others will still view me as gay. So, then, why even choose to be straight when I will not be “straight passing”? I will not pass the test of appearing straight, but rather, I will be found to be gay by my exterior. I’m always afraid others are thinking it in their heads or whispering it to each other behind my back.
So, why not just be gay when the culture is already insisting that I am gay, and Christians will listen to me and look at me and think that I must be gay. Why fight it? It would be easier just to fall off the fence into homosexuality as an identity for life.
Like I said, this confession may sound irrational to some of you, but this is the fear that goes through my mind every time I open my mouth and every time I gesture with my hands or have expressions on my face. I am so self-conscious that I attempt to regulate the way I talk and monitor my mannerisms and even hide some of my interests so that I will be straight passing.
God, what am I to do? Maybe I fear the opinions of man too much. But wouldn’t most of you feel the same way if you have always sensed that you never really fit into the world of men to begin with?
God help me. Is there anyone in the church who will understand me and my sexual identity fears? Will anyone have compassion on me? Sometimes I have felt that the culture is more understanding of my homosexuality than the church is understanding of my heterosexuality.
Or is it all in my head?
Who can I be real with in the church? Who can I share these fears with who will understand me or at least love me and walk with me on my journey?
God help me. I feel so alone.
And I must step off the fence soon.
Taylor is a real person. He is struggling with his sexual brokenness and does not know how to open up about it or who to be transparent with. Please pray for him and other men and women who are on the fence of gender identity. Be safe for them. Develop a heart of love. Pursue others outside of your typical comfort zone. Be a little Christ to them.
Love Taylor as you would love Jesus.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’” ~ Matthew 25:31ff