How has being a Christian influenced your sexuality?
Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:13 AM by Duncan Bouwer
Well, to start off with, it prompted me to consider the possibility that I might be able to change a lifestyle which had become my identity. When I gave my life to the Lord after a period of spiritual searching (See " What made you decide to try to change?") I was somehow ready to consider that I would have to give up my right to decide about my own sexuality.
This is an enormous thing and has to be a factor in any Christian's walk with God, hetero- as well as homosexual. There will be no change without it. If you somehow carry the notion around in the back of your mind that God is spoiling your fun, you can forget it, you will not change. Christian do not have rights, and before we commit to Jesus, we have only one right: the right to choose between life and death!
That is the first influence my Christianity had on my life. And that is also the main reason that I have any success at all in my struggle with an unwanted same-sex attraction.
Another influence has been in the area of masculinity. I was never terribly effeminate, but I did have a huge gaping hole in my image of myself as a man. I would be completely intimidated by whole, heterosexual men, desiring to be like them and therefore desiring them. Before I became a Christian, I was mostly surrounded by gay men, who were all searching for the perfect lover to complete them. After I became a Christian, I found that I slowly but surely started building non-sexual relationships with other men, and with righteous Christian leaders who in a sense "re-fathered" me. This has had a tremendous influence. Not so long ago I had a very significant dream. I will describe it briefly because of it's extraordinary influence on my life.
I was at a picnic of some sort, and present were several people, among them my current pastor. I went up to him and asked him if he knew what the name "Mephibosheth" means. Now please note that I couldn't even pronounce the name in my waking state, let alone had thought much about it, much less did I know what it meant. Anyway, my pastor in my dream said: "That's it!" and then I went moggy. I picked him up and threw him down a steep incline. Even in my dream I knew that what was happening was demonic. There was more, but I woke up the next morning and checked what the name means. It means "dispeller of shame (i.e. of Baal)" according to the Strong's Concordance. (Baal is one of the idols of sexual sin, and is mostly associated with sexual perversion. He was one of the gods that Yahweh warned the Israelites to have nothing to do with). Then I checked who Mephibosheth was, and found that he was a son of Jonathan, and was a cripple. Because David wanted to honour any living relative of his good friend Jonathan, this cripple ended up at the king's table (it was unheard of that this should happen).
The Lord was saying three things:
1. Shame was the problem and that it was demonic
2. I would dispel shame (my own, and others'?)
3. I would sit at the king's table in spite of my affliction honoured because of whose son I am.
In the ensuing months, I was delivered of this affliction: the shame that clung to me for who knows what reason. One reason was that I was unwanted by my father (see "Why do you think you turned out like this? ") and never could earn his love, as well as the possibility that I might have been abused (no memories, but all the symptoms)
Today I can look almost any man in the eye. I have relapses but God is progressively changing my outlook.
Today I also lead a church plant in progress, ministering to many young people. My past isn't an issue, even though I often use it in my sermons. Ironically, I am a father to many, often to ever-straight men who are my senior in years and position.
God is amazing!
Edited on: Sunday, February 10, 2008 8:37 AMPosted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS), Struggle (RSS)