Nope, It Doesn't Serve God's Purposes...
Since
returning to Columbia, SC, and the church I attended then, I'm reminded
of some loose ends left when I moved from here to there. One of loose
ends, upper most in my thinking, has been something my pastor said to
me, not long before I left, "Lonnie, when are you going to let yourself
off the hook for your past (in homosexuality)?" I stayed silent,
because I was impressed to remain silent. I knew God had an answer for
the question, and I knew it was a good one...a VERY good answer. What I
didn't understand then I have come to understand now. I needed the
answer more than my pastor needed the answer then. God's answer was
simple but among the most profound things I've ever learned from God.
I'll tell you what that answer was:
"Lonnie, you'll get off the hook, for your past, when the Church removes you from it, by taking your place on that hook."
It
took almost another five years before I was able to understand why God
wanted to give me his answer long before he wanted my pastor to have
it. It took a long time for God's answer to grow on me and into me.
I, of course, became more angry when God answered that very important
question my pastor asked. I remember my response to God when he filled
me in. "Well, God," I said sarcastically, "I won't be holding my breath
waiting for the Church to step up and take me off the hook. I'm
certain if you came back in a 100 years my sun bleached bones will still
be dangling from that, proverbial, hook." I was still seeing things
from a decidedly negative perspective. I must confess here I do not
believe the Church, for the most part, will ever step up to get on the
hook where I hang, but that is God's problem and not mine. Mine is to
join my life to Christ in his yoke, and pull the burden he pulls. Not
that I'm the one really doing the pulling, mind you. That I think is
the heart of the matter... for me at least... Christ's burden and
Christ's yoke.
Jesus says it like this:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
Don't
get me wrong, I'm not happy with Christians who continually refuse to
obey what Christ says, but today I have a greater sense of
disappointment that my fellow Christians are missing out on the great
work Jesus would do in and through them to a lost and dying world. I've
also come to realize too many of my fellow Christians are no different
from the homosexual state, from which God freed me. How could I remain
angry with a Church as lost as I was??
Perhaps
you will accuse me of being full of myself... How dare I pass such
judgment??!! I must think far too highly of myself, or I'd never dare
say such things about my fellow Christians. But how is it that
Christians who are called, cleansed, justified, and freed, by Jesus
Christ cannot understand how to reach sexually broken people? The cure
for sexually broken people is relationship with God, and relationship
with his people THE CHURCH! The Church cannot see, because they are
blind; Christians are just as relationally broken as any gay person
walking around today. If Christians understood their relationship to
God, they'd see clearly how to help the sexually broken. The answer was
always so simple I thought Christians were just being mean. I thought
Christians fully understood what they were doing, and were actively
refusing to offer what they had in Christ to gay people. The biggest
shock of my life wasn't that God could free me, and anyone else from
their sinful thinking and ways, but that most of my fellow Christians
don't understand or have the kind of relationship to God they think they
do.
How
could I go on being angry with Christians when they are just as
relationally broken as I was in my own gay lifestyle?? I'm certainly
not angry with LGBT people. They are, after all, just being what they
are, and what they are is ignorant of what true relationship is meant to
be. If I can't be mad at the gay people then I can't be mad at the
religious people, and for the same reason.
I don't know what God wants to do with this new found understanding he's given, but I'm not angry any longer. I'm still passionate, but not angry. God has a way, and he'll show me what he wants in his own good time.
