Surrendering LGBTQ
This is a brief essay on “surrender” that was commissioned by Ken Williams for his soon-to-be released e-course workbook. I thought it would be fun to publish here… and to take the opportunity to say his course (aiming to support individuals with unwanted same sex attraction) is going to be fantastic. -ew
Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal. (John 12:25 MSG)
I “came out” in my early twenties and moved to a mostly LGBTQ neighborhood in a metropolitan area. It was the culmination of years of internal questioning. Coming out in the ‘80s and ‘90s was a bold, public statement of identity that took courage. Its losses in my life (in family and childhood relationships) felt balanced by gains, not least of which was the discovery I could belong and be accepted. I had a voice as a lesbian that was undaunted because I felt I had nothing left to lose. I was independent, powerful, but quietly heartbroken.
Anyone who has left the familiar in order to “come out” knows surrender. One takes a leap of faith, with much risk, to publicly embrace an LGBTQ identity. Often, once accomplished, bridges have been burned; high school reunions pose new dilemmas; and your childhood memories take on new meaning. You've changed your hair, your wardrobe, even your career. Before you know it, you are fully entrenched in rainbow covered Equality events and the upcoming drag queen competition.
God asks nothing less dramatic when He invites you to enter His life. His Kingdom. You are now a new creation: a son or daughter of God.
...anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God... (2 Cor 5:17 MSG)
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13 NSAB)
I met Jesus among a group of teenagers on a Thursday night. It was at a storefront Christian outreach for local teens. Nevermind that I was in my mid-thirties and had a Masters Degree in Theology (I attended seminary openly lesbian.) My experience that night didn’t fit in my neatly ordered intellectual picture of God’s holiness. Instead, through the voice of a 17-year-old, God revealed that He knew me. Personally. That night’s “word of knowledge” led me to a discovery process focusing on God’s character that continues today. I recall thinking, “if God knows me individually I have no idea who He really is.” I began a complete re-evaluation of my understanding of God. He didn’t invite me to understand myself, but to discover Him, yet in that beautiful arrangement, I began to see myself differently. God began to reverse that misguided LGBTQ surrender in my life.
Compassionately, but persistently the Holy Spirit leads us to turn wholeheartedly to God. Every self-defined persona must be shed. This is one way that we express our love to Jesus.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (John 14:15 NASB)
Surrender is one of the most important disciplines of my spiritual formation. It involves a powerful mixture of self-sacrifice with bold hope. I’m convinced God is eager for us to surrender the habits and mindsets that keep us from Him. Certainly our distorted perspectives regarding sexuality are among these hindrances (see 1 Thes 4:3-8), but I wouldn’t start there. Your self-perception is a complex architectural construction comprised of child-hood traumas, family experiences and cultural pressures that God will mysteriously reorder. Begin in prayer, asking God where to focus. I call that my “irresponsible look away.” That is, turning my gaze away from myself to Him.
“I’ve prayed over and over that God would remove these feelings. He never has.”
At some point, you will realize that God is exposing what you truly believe about Him and about yourself, and He is so convincing and compelling we find it easy to comply with His ideas.
Except when it isn’t.
What is the belief you have about yourself that is painful to release? Or even humiliating to let go of? I recall being in that place when I discovered I was a woman. Yes, NOT a lesbian. The concession that I was “merely” a woman was fraught with struggle. Remember, lesbianism gave me a voice and belonging... and protection. I had NO vision for anything else. In fact, I didn’t want what I feared God was inviting me into. We were at an impasse. It took great humility and courage to pick up God’s vision for my life, which at the time I could only see as an empty page. I didn’t know what should go on it, only that I trusted God would create something beautiful. He would be responsible for getting me there as long as I didn’t erase what He was writing, or, worse, throw away the page. The hardship of surrender is that you can’t be the author.
And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6 NASB)
You have to release yourself completely from that thing He is highlighting before you will begin to see something new. If you somehow secretly hold onto gay identity, or the comfort of same sex attraction, watching to see if God’s way proves true, nothing will happen. “If my feelings never change, then it will have been true that I am gay,” is not logic that can be applied before the Lord. God will respond with as much as you give. Faith is like currency. Just remember that God is love and He will delight you with the gift He has in store: a life you never thought could be possible.
Prayer:
Jesus, I hold this out to you (in your imagination see whatever it is in your hands). I let you take it. Give me the grace I need to experience Your life instead.