Illuminating the Gospel: An Anonymous Conversation with a Gay Christian (Chapter Two)

“I’m okay with my homosexuality and I know that brings me toward God. It always calls me toward lowliness and into scary places of obedience. But like, I’ll keep holding it. It’s made me closer to God. Without Christ, I would still be very distant from God, and even if I was still choosing to not walk out in this, I think I would kind of hate God. But the example of Christ in his suffering makes God make sense and makes Christ makes sense and makes me feel kind of high. And maybe some of its prideful. But I mean, even the Scripture is like, he will bring you low in order to exalt you.”

The following is the second chapter in a three part conversation I had with a friend of mine concerning his sexuality and his faith in Christ and the intersection of the two. If you have not yet read the first chapter please do so here.

My words are in bold while his are not.

So, this still isn’t part of your public ministry. What is that like? What is it like having a kind of private ministry, but also having this public ministry where you only talk about your sin in a vague sense?

That’s hard. It’s something that I… I don’t feel emotional right now, but I could cry over it, because it’s just hard. It’s such a desire I have and… it feels like it’s so impossible. What I’ve learned in my process of becoming more unashamed of the gospel and not ashamed of how my sin plays into that – so telling more and more people – what I’ve learned is that there are many times when I want to tell and it might not be helpful, and there are many times when I don’t want to tell and it’d be very helpful. I really do have to rely on the voice of God, that conviction of the Spirit in my own heart. But just knowing the leading from his Spirit, the peace that his presence brings, I have learned how important it is to regard that in my ministry, to not just assume. There are many situations where I go in like, “please, God, don’t make me share, please don’t make me share, I don’t want to share, I’m not going to share here,” I end up sharing and it’s so good.

I do want it to be more public, but I think that the moment of me actually sharing publicly in a sermon or in a teaching or something, somehow, somewhere, it’s even going to be a moment that God’s going to lead me to that I’m going to see and it’s going to be clear. I’m probably not going to want to do it, but I’m going to know that I should.

So, I wanted to be a part of my public ministry, but I want it to be I’d rather be a part of my public ministry because the people I shepherd more and more know that about me, rather than because I’ve announced it.

Well, because if you announce it, all of a sudden that is your whole ministry. All of a sudden, you’re a gay pastor who talks about how it’s okay to be a gay Christian and your whole ministry centers on that.

Exactly.

All of a sudden, that’s all you can do, even though we don’t treat other sins that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a college guy who used to be in the church here and was back over winter break and was talking with me about life, you know, and like, he wanted to talk about singleness, because he was struggling really hard with having roommates who were either engaged or almost engaged. He’d had a couple failed relationships and didn’t really see a wife in his near future – or a girlfriend or fiancé in his near future – and was feeling very distraught about it. He really was a very godly, very Christ loving and fearing man who was just struggling with all this anxiety and frustration and fear with his singleness.

He asked me for advice because he knew me as a late 20s man, still single and seemingly okay with it, and I knew in that when he was sharing this, it just it was one of those Holy Spirit, like, the kind of pressure calming weight on you that like, I need to share this. And it didn’t end up being a homosexuality conversation. I just told him, “you think you know what I’m going through and I appreciate your encouragement, but you don’t, and for me to tell you what I’ve learned about the Kingdom in my singleness, I need to tell you a lot more about me.”

It ended up being a conversation of idols and false gospels, that in my life and my singleness I have had to repent of false gospels I have believed. Like, I’ll be saved if I’m straight, or, I’ll be saved if I’m married. I’ve had to repent of those. I had to actually believe that intimacy with the Lord is all I need. I’ve had to call God up on that, you know, and ask him to meet me. I’ve had to believe in the family of my friends and of believers in my church. I’ve had to welcome couples into my life to know me in my sexuality and still lovingly include me in their family. I’ve had to do all these things to be okay with my singleness. And I know that he, as a straight man who really wants to have a girlfriend and wants to have a fiancé, is in a completely different place that me, but similarly, would he be willing to repent to false Gospels and false narratives? And would he be willing to go to a kind of humble broken place before the Lord and seek him as his satisfaction in similar ways that I’ve had to and ways I’ve chosen to?

It’s been here in that moment, he didn’t know me as a gay pastor. He didn’t know me as gay pastor, he knew me as a man after God’s heart that he wanted to ask advice for and I got to use my raw, shameful places of brokenness to shepherd his heart toward the Lord. And I want that to happen so much so that people start to know it about me and even share it with other people without feeling bad about it. But yet, I’m not known as like the pastor who only leads in that thing. Anyways, that’s kind of rambling.

I feel like God has been preparing hearts in my community to hear my story, you know. And I’ve felt God saying, “these are going to be people that I’m going to ask you to share with,” and I’ve even seen how he’s kind of prepared their hearts to be able to have this conversation and be like minded with me. I felt him over and over in ways that I would have never imagined with people I would have never imagined. I felt him gaining and growing my community of loving, sharpening, edifying believers, and I know that it’s probably ultimately for a season where I’m not going to experience that from believers, where there’s going to be more persecution, or more hatred, or more rejection. But I think if and when that comes, I’m going to be ready for it in ways that I’m not now and I’ll respond like Christ would. But I think right now I might respond with more anger, or hatred, or self-righteousness. So that’s one hope that I have is that he’s preparing me for that.

So, going off of that, how has this experience affected your relationship with Christ? Not so much how has Christ affected the way you struggle, but how has having this as part of who you are had an influence on the way that you follow Christ, the way that you love Christ, and the way that you approach him?

It’s good. It’s made me not… in a weird way, it’s made me not assume that he owes me something. It’s illuminated his sufferings in my mind. I’ve been dealt this hand that seems unfair. But ultimately, I find life in this place of suffering, and that’s the story of Jesus—dealt a hand by God that would very much so seem unfair and ultimately finding greater glory, greater satisfaction, greater wholeness, and a lot of eternal purpose in his obedience to the suffering.

The older I get, the less I wish that my life were more comfortable and the more I kind of cling to the discomfort. I kind of like the suffering and I feel really close to Christ in my suffering, in my confusion, and kind of cling to it. And I don’t get mad at God because of it, because I see how it’s made me love Jesus more and believe in Jesus more. I believe in his story more, the story of the passion of Jesus Christ. It’s made me believe in it more in like, that it has to be true. And God had to have done that to save me and to love me and to bring me in. And I don’t want to rid myself of it because I kind of want to, like, keep holding it.

I’m okay with my homosexuality and I know that brings me toward God. It always calls me toward lowliness and into scary places of obedience. But like, I’ll keep holding it… Yeah… it’s made me closer to God. Without Christ, I would still be very distant from God, and even if I was still choosing to not walk out in this, I think I would kind of hate God. But the example of Christ in his suffering makes God make sense and makes Christ makes sense and makes me feel kind of high. And maybe some of its prideful. But I mean, even the Scripture is like, he will bring you low in order to exalt you. So I feel exalted, even in my place in ministry, even in not being “out” publicly. I often talk with people and feel like, I get the gospel way more than all of you do. I feel kind of exalted by God. I’m like, thanks. Thanks for exalting me in my suffering.

I think there’s many people like you in my life who don’t struggle with homosexuality, but yet have welcomed brokenness in their life and experience God exalting them in different ways. I don’t think it has to just be tragic death, sex, brokenness, or adultery. There’s plenty of people that I’ve been friends with that I’ve seen that same sense of welcoming suffering to be exalted in Christ and haven’t had the big crazy thing that they unveil, you know, like the big secret. So, I think there’s a lot of people that get it, but don’t have the big thing, but I am kind of thankful to have a big thing, because I think it’s helped me know Christ.

So, what are some of the helpful ways that people have approached this with you, as you’ve shared? And what are some of the unhelpful ways that people have approached it?

Unhelpful, I just think of people who expect me to be healed from it, or people to expect me to be normal. It’s really burdensome. Whenever someone finds out that I’m homosexual, their first thought is wanting to come alongside in prayer for my healing. But it’s like, do you just not want to see how much the gospel has been magnified through this? Come on, like, come on, man! God didn’t mess up in doing this to me, and you’re worried about me being healed quickly seems as if you think he messed up. That pulls me back to my elementary and middle school days; you wanting me to be healed so badly is like shoving me back in that middle school, elementary school kid where I thought God messed up, where I was so confused and so pissed, because he must have messed up and he must have forgotten to make me normal.

Then the other thing is that when people expect me to want to be married or want to date. I do want to I want to have a wife. I do. I really do. And I want to have sex with her and learn how to enjoy and how to how to serve her and vice versa. I want to raise kids. I like dating. I even like pursuing women. There are things about me that still want a female partner, to comfort and to hold her, too. I want a lot of those things, but when people assume that I, like, crave dating women like they do, that’s been really burdensome for me.

I had a conversation with my dad one time where he was always expecting me to start dating. Just to like, dabble in it, you know? “Son, it’ll be good for you.” And I agreed with him, but finally said, “Dad, the thought of you dating a man romantically, like, how does that sit with you? You know?” And he was like, “well, that’s, I find that disgusting.” And I said, “even though I can agree with you that heterosexuality is holy and homosexuality is not, you have to recognize that I, in many ways, see myself dating a woman very similarly to the way you see yourself dating a man, and you can just pretend that that discomfort isn’t always present in me.” And he handled that really graciously and understood.

So when people expect me to act straight, and when people expect me to want to be healed quickly, I like… I think straight is good and I want to be healed. It sounds awesome and I believe in it. But it’s when people come to the table with that first that it hurts me, because you’re missing something.

And then, when people respond good, the biggest thing has been when people tell me they trust me. I’ve told one of my mentors one time and he just told me that he trusted me more than he did before. He said, “I would let you be alone with my son even more joyfully and more excitedly than then 20 minutes ago, because it’s not about how sinful you are or are not. It’s about your integrity, and it’s about your confession, and your willingness to build trust with me. And your confession means the world and I trust you more than ever before.” That was huge.

When you tell people, do you feel like all the sudden they feel that your relationship with Christ is kind of their responsibility? They feel like they need to make sure you’re getting it right or make sure you’re doing it the right way.

Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. The same thing that I was trying to do with the gay people who don’t agree with me, theologically, you know? Yeah, yeah, I feel that.

So the more helpful times when people don’t do that.

(chuckling) Yeah, right. That’s a good point. When they just regard me. Yeah, that’s been the most helpful times. Trust means the world and when you do everything you can on your own accord to build trust with people your whole life because you think you don’t deserve it, and then you actually allow yourself to lay before them broken in confession and realize that for the first time this actually built trust. It just illuminates the gospel, like, the upside-downness of the gospel of Jesus. The things you don’t think are going to bring about holy outcomes end up doing just that.

Click here to read the final chapter, in which we talk about some things my friend wishes people could understand about his experience, as well as some suggestions on how to move forward in your own communities, whether gay, straight, or somewhere in between. He also gives a couple of book recommendations.