Shifting, Learning, Growing
Honestly, I kinda gave up. I couldn’t figure out if same-sex relationships were sinful or not, if God was okay or not okay with me being in a same-sex relationship. I stopped reading all the books. They weren’t helpful; I could see both sides of the argument. I stopped praying about it. Without realizing it, I kinda just let it go. Instead, I found myself just sitting with God (call it what you will…meditating, reflecting, praying). I had no big revelations. But I noticed that my nerves were settling down and my white knuckles were turning back to their normal color. I was downshifting, so to speak, like I did with my truck when it was too revved up. The uncertainty and the questions slowly began to seem less important.
I also was studying the Bible but not what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. I had done that, had studied, not only the so-called “clobber” verses, but the cultural and contextual themes regarding marriage and homosexuality in the Bible. It had not provided the answers I so desperately wanted. A friend had suggested we read Paul’s letters to the various churches. So over Voxer, we shared our insights and questions about what we had read. Doing this forced to me study the letters, not just read them. You know what sunk in? Jesus really did change everything. Before Jesus, the Jews had rule upon rule (613, in fact) that they were required to follow. They failed to follow them time after time in disastrous ways and proved that a rules-based religion does not work. Paul emphasized over and over that Jesus’ death and resurrection brought salvation to all. Not the rule-following. No more earning your way. Paul had to remind all the churches of this, repeatedly, because it was such a radical departure from the way it had been. A HUGE shift.
Something else started to dawn on me through the study. Yes, God sent his Son as a replacement for the rules and a means of tangible grace, but he also gave us his Spirit. Why had I never noticed how much Paul wrote about the Holy Spirit? It occurred to me, like something I had never heard before, that God gave us part of himself, the most intimate part of himself, his Spirit, to live inside each of us. We have access to God’s essence, his character, his disposition, his feelings, all of him, if we want it. This seemed to me the ultimate act of love, grace and goodness. And it legitimated what I had been sensing… that the more I gave space for God’s Spirit in me, the calmer I became and the less I had to know the right answer.
Something strange happened as I made more space for God: I felt more confident and I began feeling more comfortable with myself, my gay self, my messy sexuality, all of me. The shame that I had carried for years lost some of its heft. It’s counter-intuitive, but what was emerging was my own voice. When I tried to find the right way to go, when I tried to process all the information about the Biblical arguments for and against same-sex relationships, I thought I was being obedient and honoring to God. But this only made me feel insecure and less sure about myself and my sexuality. I never expected that in giving up on the “knowing the way to go,” that I would begin to find my own identity.
Somewhere along the way, God turned (is turning) my angst and anxiety about knowing the “right” answer and making the “right” decision into a deeper trust in him. Slowly, without me even knowing it was happening, God was showing me that he is an “and” God, not an “either/or” God; I was only seeing this way OR that way; I was only seeing a romantic relationship with a woman OR a lonely life. It’s all I could see. But, it seems to me that God holds more than one, not one or the other. And, as much as I think I know what I want God to do, that there are only a couple possible outcomes to my prayer or my desire, it never ceases to amaze me when God moves in a way that had not occurred to me, that I had not considered, even though I was sure I had thought about all the ways it could possibly go.
My fear that God was going to deprive me of what I thought I most wanted was not all-together gone but it had begun to recede and was no longer my sole focus. I, wonder of wonders, began to believe that there were good things ahead, even if the good things weren’t what I thought I wanted. Of course, I still had times (and still have times) when I was down, doubted God and felt bitter that I did not have a partner and a family. But it was such a big deal for me, such a relief, such a big exhale, that I no longer had to have the “right” answer.
