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LIVING WATERS vs. BROKEN CISTERNS

Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 10:05 AM by Duncan Bouwer

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Many things about this time away on the Living Waters Training course (Feb 1997), have impacted me profoundly. Before I went I was feeling further away from the Lord than I had ever felt. I had allowed a tide of greyness and mediocrity in my walk with the Lord to overtake me. None of you have probably ever experienced this, I know, *smile* but I had, and I lived for the moments when I led worship, because then I would become part of the blessing that God bestowed , and I would be blessed as well. I was hoping that this training course would reverse the tide, and so I went away, set up for disappointment. But the Lord is faithful. He waits for the least inkling on our parts that we are prepared to meet him, and then he runs to us�but I'm getting ahead of myself.

As I was saying, many things impacted me profoundly, and until I had though what to share, I had little idea that they were all linked. For instance:

� I was struck by the fervour and zealousness of the people who taught us.

� I was struck by the fact that when I was with them, suddenly I was back where I passionately loved the Lord, and I just knew that I never wanted to be in a place again, where I was not right in his presence and BURNING UP for his sake.

� Andy Comiskey spoke of the honour of God, and I was struck by that.

� I was struck by how fat and lumpish I felt, after a few days of sitting and eating and sleeping, and man, did we eat well, but that is another story�

� I was struck by the love that flowed from these people and their readiness to admit their faults. The testimonies walked a fine line between sensationalism (because, boy, were some of the stories sensational) and giving glory to God. But that is what they were�God's glory.

� And maybe I was most struck by the fact that when they prayed for someone, the Lord showed up. By the end of the second day, I felt like I had been there a week. I simply knew that I could not receive another thing, and that the overweight numbness I felt in my posterior was rapidly engulfing my brain and heart. But still, the Lord pushed though because of a combination of his faithfulness, and theirs. I just knew that this is where I wanted to be. This is what being a Christian is all about. Of course I understand that there is a certain dynamic which comes about when a bunch of people are together at a retreat for a week. That's why some people become conference junkies. But this was different. There seemed to be no gap between what they were preaching and what was happening in the evidence of the move of the Spirit. Andy Comiskey teaches that, in order for us to be able to teach this course, which hopes to break the power of deeply ingrained hurt and the resultant sin, we have to be pure ourselves. It is no good that we teach on forgiveness if we harbour unforgiveness ourselves. This not to say that we are perfect, but rather that we be accountable, and I will say more about that later.

It is no accident that the course which we went to learn more about, and which brings new life to so many people, is called Living Waters. It is of course, a term which you have heard before. The most famous instance is where Jesus offers the woman at the well LIVING WATER. But there are some instances in the Old Testament where the Lord speaks of Living Water. One in particular is significant to us today�

In Jeremiah 2:13, the Lord says:

"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, THE SPRING OF LIVING WATER, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

It seems to me that the two sins mentioned here are the two fundamental sins of all humanity, from Adam and Eve down. The sins of meeting our needs in our own way, WHEN WE HAVE A BETTER WAY AVAILABLE TO US.

The irony is that we insist on drinking from our own broken cisterns even when they have clearly proven themselves to be UNABLE TO MEET OUR NEEDS; unable to quench our thirst.

People who struggle with sexual brokenness, whether it is the addiction to pornography, the addiction to anonymous sex, the need to have a sexual relationship with another man or woman, or whatever, will always, without exception, at first find themselves trying to meet their own needs in their own way. The emptiness within the workaholic or the chain-smoker, trying to gratify a hunger that rises up from within, is all the same. And when we have realised that we are sinning, we will try to work our way out of our sinfulness in every other way possible, before we come to the one true source of all quenching, of all stilling of hunger: the source of the LIVING WATER, Jesus Christ himself.

We will fragment ourselves, breaking small pieces off and tucking them away where not even we can see them, so that we can avoid contact with the living, the real. We will believe that if enough time passes, our sin will pass away and no longer plague us. But all that happens, is that we become numb, and then we are surprised to find ourselves no longer alive to the move of the spirit of God. We don't even recognise the tide of greyness which has engulfed us, because we have welcomed it as a mistaken and sinful way of dealing with our sin.

The Lord God has deliberately designed us, and the universe, that way. Sin begets sin.

The Lord says in Jeremiah 2:19 "Your WICKEDNESS will punish you; your BACKSLIDING will rebuke you. "Consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me," declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

And here I come to the heart of what I feel the Lord wants me to tell you. This does not come directly from what I learnt at the Living Waters training course, but it underlies all the values they hold dear, because these values are fundamental to the way that God has designed reality.

In Exodus 34:12-16 the Lord says:

Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. DO NOT WORSHIP ANY OTHER GOD, FOR THE LORD, WHOSE NAME IS JEALOUS, IS A JEALOUS GOD. "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

The Lord calls himself Jealous. The word is not only used an adjective, but he says his NAME is Jealous. The whole Living Waters course, being as it is based on the principles of reality as expressed on the Bible, is based on this fact. In his mercy, God has designed reality in a way that will always compel us to him. The Lord is not only jealous because he wants us for himself. He is also jealous for our well-being. He knows us. He made us to be like that. He is the highest good, and so unless we seek him out, we will perish for lack of sustenance. Our dependence on water, as biological beings that comprise of 75% of water, is a parable of this. We need water to survive. Without the Living Water obtained through coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of all life, we wither away.

The Word of God teaches that sin is like leaven. If there is any leaven in a piece of dough, it will contaminate the whole loaf. And the Lord often destroyed the sinful among his people, because they would contaminate the good. That is also the way of sin inside of us. The tide of greyness starts by dimming God's Technicolor reality first to pastel, which is slowly watered down until the colour is merely a memory, and then even that fades until we see the world through a grey haze of mediocrity which discolours our view of reality, and we find ourselves asking questions of God which can only lead to the answer that God is selfish and mean . No wonder that Joseph's brothers hated him so much. His whole life was a testimony to being alive to the reality of God, and pushing back the tide of greyness which threatened to engulf him at every moment. His coat was only and external manifestation of an internal state! No wonder the Lord calls us to be ruthless, "Break[ing] down the altars, smash[ing] the sacred stones and cut[ing] down the Asherah poles."

If we do not, we end up like the woman at the well, so blinded by our sinfulness that we cannot see that he is the water of life, the LIVING WATER

Confession is one of the secrets to maintaining our zeal for the Lord. Unconfessed sin slowly but inexorable dulls our spiritual sense to the point where we cannot even remember what it feels like to be so alive to the Lord that sin hurts us almost as much as it hurts him. The glorious abundance of the colour of first love slowly dulls and is replaced by the murky greyness of depression and hopelessness. Confessing sin enlivens us to the to the breath of the Lord. What was previously striving becomes power and light. [And the Lord created a perfect place for this to happen. Accountability to each other and so to him, creates the perfect arena to test our zeal for him, since we are humbled every time we seek out someone to whom we can commit our deepest shame.

James 5:15-17 reads:

15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16 THEREFORE CONFESS YOUR SINS TO EACH OTHER and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Confession to another Christian is important. It also allows God to demonstrate his love to us through the loving embrace and forgiveness that the brother or sister extends to us on his behalf, since they also know what it is to sin and be separated from the Father. Unconfessed sin denies the work of Christ on the cross, and so denies the power of redemption that is released through that work. It also denies the grace and forgiveness of God as expressed through Jesus, since our lack of confession robs him of the opportunity to confer upon us the glory of the robes of righteousness which rightfully only belong to his son Jesus. The Lord Expects us to be honest. He hates the pretence of righteousness more than honest unrighteousness. [Jer 3: 10 In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretence," declares the LORD. 11 The LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.]

Only polluted water can flow from a broken cistern. Only the untrammeled resources of Christ can produce rivers of living water.

In John 7:37 Jesus says in a loud voice,

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

In Galations 6:2 it says

6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently� And in verse 2 "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ."

As I said, one of the things which struck me most about the people that I met at the Living waters training course, was their zeal for the Lord, and his honour. God's honour is seldom challenged outright in the lives of Christians. Their zeal is leeched from them slowly and thoroughly by little choices, which are made every day, every moment. Do not be mislead, it is not only those of us who come out of the depths of sexual sin, that need to keep our slates clean to prevent us from falling again. If you and I, all of us weak in some area, do not remain accountable, we are slowly engulfed by a tide of greyness, which starts, at first only wetting our feet, and then creeping up to encircle our ankles, until we get used to the stench and are unaware that it begins to climb higher and higher, finally overtaking our heads. And we drown, no longer even remembering what the glorious Technicolor of God's variety and love were like.

It is up to us to push back the tide of mediocrity and sin which engulfs us.

If you feel like a slime ball in the face of all this, you do of course know that there is a place where the Lord has ordained for us to meet him, allowing him to pay for our sins; allowing him to remove the obstacles to our fellowship with him, the causes of his wrath. No longer is it necessary for us to perpetuate the sins of our fathers, to pay for their idolatry and disobedience. And no longer is it necessary for our children to suffer to the tenth generation for our sins. Here is the place of reconciliation. Here Jesus meets us to take over the load. Here we hand over the responsibility to him. Here we halt the engulfing power of the tide of greyness and unleash the power of love and unity with God. Sin begets sin. If we sow to sin we will reap sin. If we cherish it, it will destroy us.

The Lord says in Jeremiah 2:19:

Your WICKEDNESS will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me," declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

So today I challenge you to bring to the Lord the sins which he is now raising in your minds; the dirt that is floating to the surface even as I speak If you have even the faintest inkling that there is something that you need to confess to the Lord in the presence of a trusted other, find some trusted Christian brother or sister, and ask them to pray with you now! The Lord has given us the authority to forgive sins. Use oil, and seal the work of forgiveness that has taken place in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I urge you to embrace the opportunity of offering your sin to the Lord. I entreat you to see the deception behind trying to meet your needs in your own way. [Jer 3: 23 Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills and mountains is a deception; surely in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.]

He is calling us to offer up to him our pet indulgences. He is calling us to smash the idols we have cherished in our hearts. What has promised to enrich us and fill our needs has stolen from us [Jer 3: 24 From our youth shameful gods have consumed the fruits of our fathers' labour-- their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters.] This is the time to begin the process of pushing the tide of greyness back whence it came.

Grey is not a shade of white. It is a shade of black. There is no shade of white except white. There is however one colour, and only one, that can lead to white. It is the colour red. It is the red of the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. I urge you to set aside the qualms you have at such emotive language. This is the fabric of truth. This is the substance of the universe. If you believe that God is the ultimate good, you can see it only because he has shown it to you in spite of that which separates you from him. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that is bringing you to a place of new accountability to the Lord. If your life has been overcome by greyness and sameness for a long time now, this is for you. Now is the time!

By the grace of the Lord, unconfessed sin is even now surfacing. Do not heed the voice of the Father of all Greyness who cautions you against such extravagance. Here is the Cross. Here you can offer up that which has become your familiar partner for such a long time.

Nothing is too small. There is an incident from your childhood coming to your mind. It is insignificant, it seems, but it could be a portal through which greyness has seeped into your life, and the Lord is urging you now to close it.

There is a sin from your past, something which you have often confessed to the Lord in the privacy of your quiet time, but it still comes up for no apparent reason. Now is the time to come to Him to put an end to your indecision.

Now is the time.

Posted in Archive (RSS), Beliefs (RSS), Tools (RSS)

"Normal Homosex?

Posted on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 at 7:16 AM by Duncan Bouwer

Is it "normal" for boys and girls to go through a homosexual stage on the road to adolescence? GOOD QUESTION! Why don't you write to me and tell me what you think?

Posted in Archive (RSS), General (RSS)

The Bible and Homosexuality

Posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 11:31 AM by Duncan Bouwer

The reality is that it's not about homosexuality or heterosexuality. It is about submission. The bible states clearly the parameters for sexuality and the practise of sexual intercourse. It is even more specific about the parameters for heterosexuality than for homosexuality.

But if we are not prepared to submit our agendas and natural instincts (the instinct to be polygamous, the instinct to have sex with a person of the same sex) then we cannot rightly call ourselves Christians. Heterosexuals have to restrict themselves to one sexual partner for life, no matter how natural it may feel to sleep with multiple partners. What's the difference?

Sex is an expression of who God is. It is not primarily an expression of who we are. And God is, by definition (Gen 1:27) male and female.

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." (Gen. 2:24) To be reunited; to be as they were before Eve was taken out of Adam. To once again be like God.

Posted in Archive (RSS), Beliefs (RSS)

WHY WE SUFFER

Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 5:13 PM by Duncan Bouwer

Looking at the world, what you see is rape, alcoholism, divorce, etc. and it is difficult to see the purpose behind all this suffering. Indeed, for the non-religious person, there seems to be little point in it all, and this is reflected in the philosophies that gave rise to our modern culture. In the absence of any kind of central unifying principle, the world has had to assume that the human being is in the centre of the universe, and self-actualization, whatever form it might take, is the main goal. When this fails, and all the mind-power in the world does not produce permanent "happiness" and fulfilment, humankind has to ask the question:

"What is the purpose of life?"

The world has no answer to this question. Assuming that meeting their perceived needs is the highest good, they are dumbfounded when they cannot do it, or at least, when that which they do to achieve this goal, fails. The fact is that, while they may not be able to pinpoint the purpose of life, they easily identify the nature of life:

"Life is a struggle"

But why? This is not such a stupid question as it may seem. If the nonbeliever cannot find an answer to this question, their struggle has no purpose, and there is no reason for them to endure the suffering, and they might as well commit suicide, as a great many of them indeed do.

The Christian life

So what about the Christian life? Why does the Christian have to suffer? After all, we have done what it takes to inherit "life, and life more abundantly". We have done what it says in Romans 10:9 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.". So we should, according to the faith movement at least, have a life of plain sailing. We should be rich, healthy, and carefree. WHY AREN'T WE? Are we in sin, do we not have enough faith? Does the Lord not care? Are his promises false, or are we misinterpreting something?

This seems important enough to pursue. Not only do we need to know what we rightfully may expect, but we need to know why!

Apparently the process of salvation goes like this:

Rom 5:1 "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

That seems fair enough! There is "hope of the glory of God"! So let's carry on�

"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, "

WAIT minute! Who said anything about suffering? This story is getting out of hand! Read on. Maybe it is a mistake!

"�because we know that suffering produces perseverance;�"

Nope, no mistake here!

"�perseverance, [produces] character; and character, hope."

What kind of hope can all that produce? The only kind of hope I want is that I won't have to suffer too much. This is not what it said in the contract:

Rom 10:9 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,

10 For it is with your heart that you believe, and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

It doesn't even say, "confess your sin", it says "confess Jesus is Lord". BAD NEWS!!!! I didn't read the small print.

A small fact:

The word "Suffer/suffering/suffered" appears in the NIV version of the Bible 90 times in 83 verses!

But it does say:

Rom 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes."

So there must be something in all of this that is for our good, and

Suffering understood is suffering more easily borne!

Suffering Part 2

In order for us to begin to understand what the reasons for suffering are, there are 2 things we must clear up.

HIS SACRIFICE WAS NECESSARY: Romans 3:23 Says: "For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God." We have to believe that Jesus needed to die in order for us to be saved, and there is no other way for us TO be saved.

There is nothing we can do to save ourselves. So, we believed in him. Big step. Our salvation, in respect of the Spiritual, is complete. We will never become more saved spiritually than we are now. But there is more to us than the spiritual.

We still live physically in this world. We have emotions, a will, and an intellect, all of which are rampantly opposed to God's will for us. So the step of Salvation where we believed on Jesus, was big, but not the biggest. But it is only one part of God's ultimate plan. He wants that we should go one (BIG) step further:

We must continue to choose him. Faith is only faith when it cleaves to the eternal, not the temporal. It is sceptical of the physical. It chooses to demonstrate a choice to hold onto good (as demonstrated to us in the will of God) even when there is no immediate reward. It calls us to pursue FURTHER salvation.

HIS SACRIFICE WAS ENOUGH The next big step, and this is almost more difficult than the first, is to believe this. The reason we have to finally put to rest our notions of salvation, is that we have to finally rely on him to be the author and finisher of our faith. When we are faced with the habits which ensued from our brokenness, we have to believe the above, enough to be able to choose Jesus above our old, and very outdated ways of relating. In other words we HAVE TO START APPLYING HIS SALVATION TO OUR LIVES IN EVERY PRACTICAL WAY POSSIBLE.

Some Questions to ponder:

1. Do you believe Romans 3:23 is true? Do you believe that it was necessary for Jesus to die on the cross?

2. Are you saved? This is not such a stupid question as it seems. Do you believe that Jesus died for you, and the God raise him from the dead? Read Romans 10:9-10 and decide for yourself how you will answer this question. If you are not saved by the definition of Romans 10:9, then go here first

3. Do you believe that Jesus' sacrifice was enough?

In other words, are you still intent on supplying your own answers when the going gets tough?

4. Do you demonstrate the salvation of Jesus in the choices you make when you are confronted with situations which bring up old feelings and reactions?

Reasons for suffering:

Rom 8: 16-17 says� "we are God's children��co-heirs with Christ...indeed we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his Glory"

We are part of the same family. Members of the same family go through the same stuff. Jesus suffered, so we suffer with him. If he suffered to be proved worthy, we share in the same character and the way it is produced.

We are, even more so, part of his body�if the person suffers, so does the body. It cannot be escaped. A person goes hungry, even the ring finger loses weight. One for all and all for one!

His suffering led to his glory. If we are to share in his glory, we must share in his suffering.

We, being part of his body, already share in his glory, but for our own sakes, and for the sake of his increasing glory, it needs to be "revealed in us: (vs. 18)

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

We are being "mined" for glory. The suffering is revealing his glory in us (more about that later)

And being "Mine"-ed (made his) through the constant choice we make for him. In the face of suffering we make choices which confirm his ownership of us.

Questions to consider:

1. Did you know that Jesus is your big brother? Nice thought, hey?

2. What KIND of glory could possibly be revealed in you?

3. Think HOW his glory is revealed in you when you struggle.

3. Do you genuinely think his glory is WORTH IT?

4. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you some of the things he has done in

you through struggle/suffering!

SUFFERING TURN US TO GOD

That God might be glorified� (Rom 5:2) "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

It shifts the focus away from us and where it belongs to God.

The proper focus for the one who is suffering, is not the one who is suffering, but the one who can do something about it.

In a strange, almost paradoxical way, the Lord hopes to direct us outwards through suffering. It is easy to be philanthropic and giving when we are in easy street, but it is character building, and self-sacrificing to be outward directed when we are in the midst of suffering.

Remember in the last teaching I said that character traits run in families. We are to build character that resembles Jesus' character. Suffering builds that. Jesus was perfected through suffering, and so are we. What it does require from us is that we do not wallow in our suffering, but that we turn towards the source of the hope that we have: God the Father, and accept that life is hard, but still glorify him.

Character is realistic�it is born of truth. And that includes the truth that God is great and that he must be acknowledged to be good and great no matter what the evidence. It is the biggest slap in the devil's face that we do not turn on God when we suffer. That is the whole story of Job all over again. So in the truth that we discover in the midst of suffering, namely that God is great no matter what we are going through, we begin to assume even more of the character of God. Of Jesus.

This kind of hope "does not disappoint us" (vs.5), because it is not based on evidence, but on the truth. (Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.) we learn, by building into our spiritual heritage, how to operate out of the "new Creation". The words of God become more real to us than the evidence of our flesh. I am not talking here about a "name it, claim it" kind of theology. ALL OF YOU will know no matter how much you rebuke suffering, it does not go away. I am talking here about beginning to breathe a spiritual air, beginning to breathe the "atmosphere of our home planet," where Christ already resides. From that place springs the "peace that surpasses all understanding", and the "joy of the Lord which is our strength"!

4. QUESTIONS TO PONDER.

a) Do I use suffering as a means to turn me to God?

b) How can I practically turn outwards when I suffer. How can I demonstrate the character of Christ, and his SERVANT nature, when I am suffering?

c) Do I REALLY BELIEVE that God is great and good, not matter what?

WE SUFFER SO THAT GOD'S GOODNESS AND COMPASSION MAY BE REVEALED.

In him, as he comforts us. He is called "the father of compassion & and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles�" (2 Cor 1:3)

The world tries to make out that God is cruel, and hold up our suffering as an example. In actual fact it is exactly the opposite. It is inflicted upon us by the Enemy, and instead of achieving his purpose, namely to make us curse God, it gives God the opportunity to reveal his true nature to us. He shows us how loving and compassionate he is.

In Heb 7: 22 ? it says: " Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. 23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 26 Such a high priest meets our need--one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens."

We suffer, so that his nature may be revealed IN US 2 Cor 1:4-6 "�who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. It is a beautiful outworking of what we read in Rom 8:28� "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

So the circle of suffering and compassion increases and increases, until, Satan has destroyed himself. He has well and truly shot himself in the foot. The compassion of God, started for us in Jesus Christ, demonstrated through his death on the cross, is transferred and magnified every time it is demonstrated by one of his children who has suffered and received compassion and comfort, to another who is suffering and so on. Suffering creates the possibility of a most holy transaction.

Questions to Ponder

1) Is there a way that I can begin to see suffering in this more positive light? Does God, or has God, ever revealed his compassion to me through my suffering?

2) If not, ask him to.

3) If yes, make a note of these instances, and add them to your armoury.

4) Have I ever shown the compassion I was shown, to others?

It reinforces God's intention in us that we should put to death the "flesh". The choice to endure suffering denies the self which clamours for the easy way out. It denies the self that cleaves to old ways of doing things. It starves it out. Choice to endure suffering for God's sake strengthens the real self, the one we start building on�the "new creation", which is built up of eternal stuff and not temporary, perishable matter.

Resurrection can only happen after death. Christ had to die in order to be resurrected,

Christ had to die in order for the Holy Spirit to be released in him to produce resurrection. It is the same with us. "Unless a seed fall to the ground and die�"

And so suffering is a tool for our deliverance from the world. This is what we should seek, not deliverance from suffering.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER.

1) Am I ready to give up the "old self"?

2) Do I begin to see suffering in a positive light rather than as a punishment?

Suffering purges our perceptions, so we may see the truth of Christ, namely that our entire hope is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

We no longer allow ourselves the luxury of self-pity. When we begin to identify with the crucified Christ, we are enabled to se ourselves for what we are: "little Christs" (That is what the Greek word "cristianos" means) whose sole purpose in life is to become more like him. So we identify with him on the cross, and assume the mantle of one who is has a greater purpose, above the demands of our own agendas, where we can begin to see our eternal goal�

We can offer hope to the world that there is purpose in their suffering, since we have the authentic view of our own suffering as the true purpose on earth, namely to emulate our master in his mission�.to reveal the Father to the world.

To reflect to the world that the Father is ALWAYS extending a hand of compassion and mercy to those who are struggling under the yoke of the devourer, who are caught up for a season on a planet where they are aliens, breathing a foul, tormenting alien air.

To prove to the heavenlies by our reaction to suffering, that the Father is ULTIMATE GOOD, and that we choose to serve him, even though it becomes progressively more difficult. Our behaviour is an affirmation that HE is God.

Phill 3: 8 "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

Questions to ponder.

1) Have you learnt anything of value from this extended teaching?

2) What did you learn (Email me at dunx@exgayman.org

Posted in Archive (RSS), Tools (RSS)

How does one become gay?

Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 4:53 PM by Duncan Bouwer

How does one become gay? Are you born like that, or do you become like that through upbringing? The old "nature/nurture" debate all over again.

This has not been resolved. But there seems to be one common factor. In men, at least, it seems that there is always some dilemma with the father-figure. Gay men would like to deny this, but there seems to be plenty of proof for this . It seems like there is no single group with such perfect father-son relationships as militant gay men.

For others of us, coming out of homosexuality, the picture is very different. In a post-war generation, it is not surprising that there is such an increase in homosexuality. Absent fathers, both emotionally and physically, are the norm.

As I say elsewhere there probably is a gene that predisposes one to homosexual attractions. Like everything else in nature/creation, call it what you will, I believe it is a mistake. I believe it is a result of the Fall of creation and wouldn't have been that way had we not entered into disobedience through our ancestor Adam. I also believe that this falls into the same category as our predisposition to sexual immorality: it was never intended to be that way. So there it is... I know it is not a popular position.

Posted in Archive (RSS), Beliefs (RSS), General (RSS)

GUARD YOUR HEART 1

Posted on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 1:29 PM by Duncan Bouwer

Part one

Proverbs 4:23-27

The question is often asked: how do I live, in a practical way, that will accelerate my victory in the struggle against my unwanted same-sex attraction?

The answer is not simple, and to make the question more relevant, it should perhaps be rephrased: how do I live, in a practical way, that will accelerate my victory in the struggle against the immaturity and idolatry which are an inherent part of my fallen nature as a man/woman, who is as yet unglorified?

You see, the answer to both is the same, but if you try and answer the first question, you will inevitably be skewed in your response; misled into placing the emphasis where it does not belong: on the unwanted same-sex attraction, which is a symptom of the idolatrous and immature ways of relating to which the world at large, and we in our own particular way, are prone!

I am going to try and answer the question, at least partially, from Proverbs 4:23-27. The portion of scripture, in the Amplified Bible, reads as follows:

"23 Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. 24 Put away from you all false and dishonest speech, and wilful and contrary talk put far from you. 25 Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose] and let your gaze be straight before you. 26 Consider well the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established and ordered aright. 27 Turn not aside to the right hand or the left; remove your foot from evil."

In the interest of brevity, this week I will only deal with verse 23, and thereafter with a verse a week for 4 weeks after that.

So, on to verse 23: "Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life."

Biblically speaking, the heart is the seat of emotion and belief. This is what the bible is referring to here. It is our convictions about ourselves and the world which drive us to act in certain ways, some of which are good, and most of which are bad. Our (homosexually oriented) hearts are filled with all sorts of rubbish to start off with. That is why we are attracted to the same sex in the first place.

We believe: 1) that we are unlovable. Our fathers and mothers, in almost all cases, were so broken, that they were simply not able to love us in a way which could produce a person who knows their own worth, as expressed by God the Father. This is not their fault, but something which is passed on from the previous generations in an endless tide of brokenness, each generation compounding the errors of the previous.

We believe: 2) That it is unsafe to trust anybody... a) ...to meet our needs, least of all God, who in many cases we subconsciously/consciously hold responsible for our pain, and our turning out the way we have. b) ...not to hurt us, and so we secretly/openly believe that God will do the same, since he is supposed to be in control of the world and so must take responsibility for who we are. c) ...with our love, since we have been rejected so many times before, starting with our parents (in some cases) and carrying on in a continuous line of rejection, until we hoard our feelings carefully, becoming closed off until we have lost the ability to love, except for meeting our most immediate needs (sex), without giving anything of ourselves in return.

We believe: 3) That we deserve what we have been dealt, because we are completely unworthy to start off with, so when we get dumped again, or hurt again, or our trust is abused again, we are not surprised, because it merely confirms what we know anyway. So God cannot love us because we have been proven time and time again to be unworthy of love, and deserving of punishment and abuse.

That is why the Bible says that we should keep and guard our hearts. It influences the way we see reality. What we believe, makes us relate to the world in a certain way, and the way we relate to the world determines to a large degree how it relates to us.

You will notice that all of the above examples contain in some way or another, an attitude to God. In some way or another what we have experienced has misshapen our perception of God in such a way that we are prepared to:

1) ...call him a liar, when he says he loves and values us, 2) ...choose our own way of doing things rather than to be vulnerable and do things his way.

These are idolatrous attitudes, because: a) we set ourselves up as authorities above God and what he says. We might not have actively chosen to believe these things but we have to take responsibility for continuing in our faulty beliefs. Out of them "flow the springs of life"! b) We set ourselves above God when we do things our way. We have the RIGHT to be this way: we have been hurt enough!

Everything that is not faith is sin (Rom 14:23 slightly out of context). Every belief that contradicts God is sin. Every belief that chooses our own opinion above his, is idolatry. It's very true, and very simple. You can dig up all the memories in the world, of being hurt and abused and victimised, and you may go through emotional healing till the cows come home, but if it does not produce repentance in your heart for the things you have chosen to believe about God, you will not move more than a baby step ahead.

MATURITY Maturity means taking responsibility for your choices. Perhaps you were to young/small to make informed choices about the way you saw God before, but now you are hoping to outgrow those ways of relating, and that means that you must face up to that fact that you can either continue to make your choices in the same way, or you can grow up and see things his way.

EXERCISE Check what you believe about reality. The only beliefs about reality that really matter, are what you believe about God. What do you believe about God? Do you beliefs concur with his Word? How do they differ? What can you do about it? Spend some time talking to God about your attitudes to him. He is not surprised, and according to Rom 8:1 "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Ask him to forgive you for your attitudes, and declare your willingness, at least in principle, to co-operate with him as he adjusts your attitudes.

And may the "Peace that passes all understanding and guards you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus," (Phillippians 4:7) be yours.

Posted in Archive (RSS), Tools (RSS)

June 26, 2005

Posted on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 1:28 PM by Duncan Bouwer

And crawling on the planet’s face

Some insects called the human race

Lost in time, and lost in space

And meaning

SEEMS LIKE IT DOESN’T IT….But it’s not true. Here is the meaning of life. People, hearts, beauty. Serendipity and happenstance

And here you are just looking into my eyes

And there I see the love you can’t disguise

You gather my inside your loving arms to day

you don’t go away

you choose to stay…

Holy are you Lord,

Holy are you Lord

Holy are you Lord,

Oh my Delight!

Posted in Angerblackhole Blog (RSS), Archive (RSS)

Changing

Posted on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 1:26 PM by Duncan Bouwer

This is not as simple as you may think! Yes, God is powerful and yes, he wants us to be whole, but in his funny way he can seem quite contrary to us. I mean, what is simpler to him, than to wave his magic wand and declare us "straight", right? Wrong!

We were broken through relationships and so we will be healed through relationships. That is not to deny that God does heal us when we cry out to him, but his methods are not necessarily up to our specifications of comfort and ease!

To make matters worse, you same-sex attractions are hardwired into your brain, and so we have to weaken those habits of relating through "renewing of our minds": Literally! As they say, "old habits die hard", and they die best when replaced with new ones.

So get used to it...there is hard work ahead!!!

Posted in Archive (RSS), Struggle (RSS), Tools (RSS)

Co-creators, with Christ, of the New Creation

Posted on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 6:36 AM by Duncan Bouwer

Let's read 2 Cor 5. Later we will read a much longer passage from this chapter, but for now I just want to read verse 17:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

When I gave my life to the Lord in 1991, I was sharing a flat with a friend of mine, who taught me some valuable things about the word of God. According to one of those truths, "if the word of the Lord said something, it was so", and it was to be acted on as such. So according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, I, who used to be homosexual, was no longer so, and could now consider myself to be a "new creation", which would mean that the "old identity would have passed away, and that everything had become new", which, as you can see, is exactly what the verse says.

And it was so. I became new. Even people who spoke to me on the phone could sense that something had happened to me. My face changed, I stopped swearing, and in the theatre, that more than anything, caused a stir. Everybody swears.

So there I was, practising the reality of this short verse, which for a person who formerly was unequivocally gay, and now no longer was, was a life-transforming experience. It seemed that my former friends were in two minds whether they believed in this change or not. One group broke off acquaintance with me, because they sensed the presence in me of the One that made me this new creation. The others were convinced that I would be back in all the old haunts soon enough. Estimates varied from six weeks to six months. And neither was completely right. Because what neither I nor they knew, was that while it is absolutely true that once you receive Christ, you are a new creation, and you are something completely different from what we were before, you are not yet what you will be, and no matter how much you wish it were so, you will not be that new creation completely this side of the grave. It has taken nine years and (more significantly) marriage to convince me of this, and I think it is what separates the spiritual men and women from boys and girls.

The moment we start to mature arrives when we, flushed with youth and the thrill of knowing it all, find ourselves increasingly confronted with situations that defy our superior intellect and insight, and we are slowly reduced to the unenviable position of those (older) men and women we see around us. Increasingly we have to admit that life is not an amusement park ride, and what we took for brilliant insight was merely a shallow unawareness of the painstaking and hard-won progress that characterises true growth and self-awareness.

Let's turn back to the 2 Cor 5. Lets start reading from verse one.

5:1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,

As you can see, we are off to a good start! We start reading this chapter hoping to hear that we are new creations to which there is no further work to be done as we while away the time until Jesus returns, and already we hear that there are two dwellings. One is here, and in it we groan while it is demolished around our ears, and the other one is in heaven. And we all know what has to happen before we will see that one: we have to die to posses it.

3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, (again we groan!) because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,

Just in case you have forgotten, these are the verses which are going to lead up to the triumphant conclusion that we are "a new creation in Christ." It's just as well that at this point Paul thinks it appropriate to give us a little bit of encouragement�

.....because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, �so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 6 Therefore we are always confident�! (speak for yourself Paulie!) and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 We live by faith, not by sight. (oy!) 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

On to verse 13: 13

If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

What does this all mean? Paul seems to contradict himself here. He talks about the destruction of the old tent, and not being found naked, since we have a new home in heaven...then he says a whole bunch of other things and ends up saying "Therefore", that is, as a result of all that, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

I must be missing something. He describes a process, and then says because of that process which will only be fulfilled when we are in heaven, something has already happened in heaven!

We have to try and make sense of this somehow. Let's try and put it into terms that refer to our daily lives. We know that the tent he refers to refers to the body we live in here on earth until we live in heaven, in our new bodies. We don't have to interpret the words "meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling" too much. It's obvious what that means. Why do we groan? It says here, in verse 4: "we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,".

It's my opinion that this is quite and important phrase. In my mind it implies that we have to be unclothed, before we can put on the heavenly body. I don't think unclothed means a one-time death, which after all would be a relief. I think it means a perpetual death, during which we are slowly and painfully relieved of garments, or parts of the earthly home, and although we are not yet in heaven, we are clothed in our heavenly dwelling by hands that are not human. By God's hands. That's why we have to live by faith and not by sight. Because we can see what we have to take off, but we will only see in heaven what it is with which we have replaced it.

That is why I have called this talk "Co-creators with Christ, of the New Creation". The sermon is actually over. But it is important to see how this takes shape in daily life, and why. It is really important, because otherwise we will lose heart and give up.

You will forgive me if I illustrate this talk with numerous examples of my own walk out of homosexuality, since it is probably one of the most relevant examples of the process described above, that I can think of. If you ask someone who struggles with something which has become part of their "earthly dwelling", or identity, they will say the same thing. And really every one of us has things that fall into this category, otherwise we would have no need to go through this painful process, and we can just be raptured away like Enoch!

When you find that you are attracted to members of the same sex it's usually too late to just simply change. By that time the damage is usually done, and while it is easier at that stage to decide not to take up the option of living like that, than to try and change later when you have put on several more of those garments, you have in reality already put on quite a few which need to be taken off.

1) You have put on the garment of rejection. To put it simplistically, a man or woman who is attracted to the same sex, has gone through a long process, which in most cases starts with an initial problem with the parent of the same sex. I said this is a simplistic description, and so I am not going to qualify this statement. There is something which is perceived as rejection, and the young boy or girl loses the ability to receive love from the parent of the same sex. The rest of childhood is spent growing up without the ability to receive nurturing care of the parent of the same sex, even if it is given. This usually also involves an inability to be accepted by the peer-group, for one reason and another. So by the time the child reaches adolescence, there is a deficit of several years, which somehow needs to be filled. The soul is empty and has stayed behind where it was last loved, and yet the body of this emotional child is growing and suddenly finds itself washed in the hormones which announce the onset of puberty. The need to be loved by a person of the same sex, which remains, is eroticised, and there the desire is felt.

My point here is that, by the time the first twinges of same-sex attraction are felt, many consecutive garments have been put on which now have to be painstakingly removed and replaced with other more appropriate ones.

Now, if you then at this point choose to act out the feelings of attraction, you

2) Put on the garments of reinforcement. Every time you now act out the behaviour which for a short time relieves the need for same-sex love, you put on another garment, which further builds the house of identity in which you live. Every time you put on another item of this clothing through any deed which reinforces this dwelling, even if it is not sexual as such but only even associating with a set of people who adopt a certain way of talking and acting, you further establish your residence in this place where you live. You are in fact building up a false creation which provides you with a great deal of safety and security, since it is a place to live, even if it is not a good place to live. This might carry on for many years of constant reinforcing of a flawed way of relating, to satisfy needs which can never be satisfied that way.

3) Now comes the day when you look out of the window of your dwelling, because you heard a knock at the door, and there stands someone who by the very expression on his face, makes you believe that he will be able to love you as you deserve to be loved. You invite him in, one thing leads to another, and he moves in. But it is still the dwelling you originally built, and so you go on adorning yourself in the garments of rejection, because that is what you know best, even while someone who does not reject you, is living in your house with you.

But because he is God, and he is eternal, and he has claimed you for his own through the work he did on the cross, you are guaranteed that one day you will move on to a "dwelling that was not created with human hands". So the phrase

"if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! "

is as good as true, in the eternal scheme of things. But as quickly as we take off our old dwelling piece by piece, we tend to put those garments back on again. Verse 4 says: "For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling�" We want to change, but we do not want to go through the extremely painful process of undressing out of those wrong and hurtful garments!!!!

When I was a child we had an old 16 mm projector and some cartoons which we always watched with glee. One of my favourites was one where a bunch of crows live in an old double story house, and one day the house catches on fire. They call the fire brigade, and everybody starts carrying pieces of furniture out of the house through the front door. But as fast as they do that, the fire reaches out through the upstairs windows, and carries the furniture back into the house.

In spite of this, the whole point of this talk is the following. Every time we decide for Christ in some way or another, after that initial moment when we first invited him in, we are building something eternal. As it also says in Vs 4, "What is mortal [is] � swallowed up by life."

Please turn to 2 Corinthians 4:10-11:

10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

When I invited Jesus into my house that day, he had already died the death that overcame the death that was at work in me. So it is not that everlasting death that I now carry around in me any longer. It is HIS death, which leads to life. So every time when I am faced with a choice whether to put on the garment of rejection, which was leading to my death, or the garment of his acceptance, which leads to life, and I choose to do the latter, I become a CO-creator, with Christ, of my own, "new creation"!

Posted in Archive (RSS), Struggle (RSS), Tools (RSS)

24 June 2004 II

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 3:23 PM by Duncan Bouwer

Facing the black hole is fear personified. I am scared I will lose control of my bodily functions if I face the fear and pain that are covered by the rage. I cannot even want to want to go there. When the buffers of everyday life are removed, all that stares me in the face is the faceless chaos. It is not all bad. For the most part everything is fine. I love life and my family. But deep deep down there is an ocean of unpredictable chaos; a monolith of being disposable. And so I fight against the void…Selah

Posted in Angerblackhole Blog (RSS), Archive (RSS)

My Jouney

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 9:04 AM by Duncan Bouwer

THIS IS THE STORY OF DUNCAN BOUWER. PLEASE NOTE THAT EACH STORY IS UNIQUE. THERE ARE SOME MEN AND WOMEN WHO STRUGGLE MORE TO CHANGE, AND SOME WHO STRUGGLE LESS.

Edited on: Sunday, February 10, 2008 9:08 AM

Posted in Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS)

Were you always attracted to boys/men?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 9:02 AM by Duncan Bouwer

Honestly I don't know. That is not a cop-out, but let me explain: When I was a little boy I played around like other little boys. It's difficult to decide whether it was more or less than other children. They say it is normal for all children to mess around with other childrenof the same sex. Just this week I saw two nine year old girls messing around in the pool, kissing each other. I remember an experience with another boy in my class, where we played outside, pretending that we were Tarzan and Jane. I was Jane, so I dunno if that means anything (*smile*). We kissed each other on the mouth a lot, but it never went further than that.

Maybe what makes me think that I was different, was that I remember clearly that I dreamed about a young guy who was in my school when I was in Junior School. I was so in love with him that I felt my heart would break. I can remember that dream today and I must have been in the second grade. I was also particularly aware of the bulge in the swimming instructor's speedo, and that I got an erection when I was roughing around with a guys I was friendly with (much to his disgust!)

But to be honest, if I had to say whether I was always acutely aware of being attracted to other guys from a very young age, then the answer is "no". Actually, I always had girl-friends and was intimate with them without having actual sex. But there came a time, after I acted out the first time, when I tried to sustain a relationship with some girls, but I just couldn't. Once I had acted out with a man, it was a lost cause. I hope that answers the question.

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS)

When did you first act out?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:58 AM by Duncan Bouwer

Well, as I mentioned elsewhere, I was mildly active as a child, but probably not consciously homosexual. All during school, I had girlfriends, although I never was sexually active to the point of penetration. I came very close, though.

At the age of 18 I entered university (college) and within a week found myself thinking and saying things that I had never (consciously) though and said before. I was in res and we were subjected to initiation, and so all the guys who were not the macho he-man types seemed to band together for comfort and mutual support. I found myself associating with all the gay guys. Of course, in the beginning it was never mentioned that they were gay (this was 1979) but we instinctively knew we had something in common.

I changed roommates, because the guy who I was sharing with was just such an incredibly impossibly unlikeable... (I mistakenly took him to a gay bar, showing him what my new lifestyle was. He seemed OK with it when I told him I was gay and seemed interested in the gay scene. I never for one moment thought he could be gay, but hoped against hope that he, who was my roommate after all, could accept my choice. From the next day he turned into a monster.) Eventually, in self-defence, I moved out and into a room with a guy who, if he is still a man today, I will eat my hat. He had a high voice, no beard, and was extremely refined and effeminate. In moving in with him I was making some very public choices about whom I was choosing to associate with. Even though this new roommate, not suprisingly, considering all the victimising that he endured, moved out soon after that, the die was cast for me.

The thought started going through my head that I might be gay. I can't recall if I was attracted to anybody or not, but I know that it was such a terribly insecure time, where any affirmation would have been good, that this could have been a strong factor in what happened next.

There was a guy who seemed to have it all together. He was well-groomed and his clothes were to die for. It just seemed that if this guy could like me, I would surely be somebody (Isn't that some of the basis for all of our same-sexual attractions?) So one day I found myself saying to him that I thought I might be bisexual. That wasn't as "bad" as being gay, so it seemed like a "safe" thing to say to a guy who was so together. He admitted to being gay, and soon I dragged him into bed.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world when we first had sex. I was excited and definitely hooked. I knew just what to do and took to it like a duck to water.

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS)

Were you happy as a gay man?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:56 AM by Duncan Bouwer

The short answer is, yes. After all, what we look for as gay men, is affirmation from another man. We think that if we are "loved" by another man, we are fulfilled.

Initially I was devastated, because I grew up in a conservative community, not to mention country (South Africa), and I knew what the bible said about homosexuality. I tried to get over it by praying about it (not too seriously) because my conscience told me that it was wrong. I even tried to have a relationship with an old girlfriend who was at the same university. It didn't work. I didn't get over it, and my relationship with my ex just didn't have the same charm anymore. So, without making a conscious decision about it, I just drifted out of being uncomfortable with it, and started enjoying myself.

Because I was young (18) when I entered the gay scene, it was easy to be happy. Sex is easy to obtain, and when you are attracted to another man, the excitement can easily pass for love and contentment. Even now, when I think back of some of my experiences, my heart skips a beat. There was certainly a lot of excitement involved in this lifestyle. My only obligation was to enjoy myself and see that my itches were scratched.

In 1983 I met a man who was to be my lover for altogether 7 years, 5 of which we lived together. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn't moved to London. It was the perfect relationship. Everybody knew that we would be together for life. To crown it all, we had the dream arrangement. We were in an "open relationship" which meant that we were free to have sexual intercourse with other men, as long as we didn't get emotionally involved. For the first 2 years it went well, because we didn't use the privilege. But then I went away to do a show in another city, and things went horribly wrong. To be fair, this could have happened in any committed relationship, even a heterosexual one. I used the privilege of our open relationship, and fell in love with the guy that I was having sex with. This will be remembered as one of the most painful experiences I have ever had. It caused hurt all round. Three people caught in a whirlwind of broken promises and expectations.

I managed to pull my relationship together again, with difficulty. My lover was like a father to me. When I met him, my whole personality changed. My interests were subsumed in his. I changed from a relatively empty-headed young queer into a political activist. For 5 years all I thought of was to be the person that my lover wanted me to be. This isn't a gay thing either. It can happen to any co-dependent person. It's just that, because one broken man cannot give another broken man what he hasn't got himself, my needs were unmet. I moved around in a fog of marijuana addiction, striving to be a professional singer, succeeding, but still unfulfilled.

I know that some gay people succeed in reconciling their homosexuality with their Christianity, but I was not able to and under the influence of my lover, I turned my back on God altogether. I became an "atheist". My homosexuality became my god. My gay identity was all that I wanted to be and was and so everything that I was hid in the shadow of my homosexuality. I shoved everybody's nose in it, even in the army where I was very out of the closet.

Funny enough, when my lover of 5 years at that time, moved away, to start a career in London (I was to follow later) one of the first things that started happening amidst the sleeping around and circular seeking for stability, was that I began to seek after a spiritual life again. The cynics amongst my readers will say that it was because I had lost a lover, but, well, maybe it was.

Just before I gave my life to the Lord in 1991, I experienced the unhappiest time I had as a gay man. I met and fell in love with a young man that represented everything that I wanted. He was beautiful, and people fell over themselves to be with him. He chose me, and so started the cycle of lust and possessiveness that was to almost drive me mad. I was so jealous of him that finally I drove him away from me. He represented the pinnacle of achievement for me as a gay man, and when he left me amidst lies and deceit, I was devastated. I got involved with another very mixed up man who was into every spiritual and occult practise and belief you could wish to mention, as well as sleeping around, and I can be glad I didn't catch aids.

The gay lifestyle wasn't all it had cracked up to be. I don't think that I consciously thought that I was unhappy, but hindsight is 20/20, so I can see I was heading for a fall. Maybe I was a bubble-head anyway, but there is nothing in that life that can compare with what I have now. Thank God I left it behind. When I meet men who are in the lifestyle, who ask me questions about changing etc. I feel a great sense of "darkness" hanging over them. It engulfs my heart and I remember that my life had no hope and no purpose.

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS)

What made you decide to try to change?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:54 AM by Duncan Bouwer

It's interesting that when I finally made a commitment to changing, it didn't take me a lot of time to decide to do it. It was what lead up to it that took the time.

I started reading books about the occult in 1989 when my lover left the country to live in London (see "Were you happy as a gay man?" for that part of the story). I was into all sorts of things, reading about Theosophy, Wicca and the Caballah mostly. Some of the literature that I read, mostly the New Age stuff spoke about the Christ consciousness, and because I had been a nominal Christian before, I didn't find it too hard to pray to the (non-threatening) Christ consciousness. I was praying quite regularly when I played the part of Jesus in the musical "Godspell" at the end of 1990. Of course, I could do all the things I wanted to, like smoke dope, drink a lot, sleep around etc. if I wanted to, because the new age religion very obligingly doesn't prescribe behaviour except to adjure us all to goodness.

Some time before a friend of mine moved in with me because he didn't have a job or a place to stay. He was a fallen Christian who was also into the gay lifestyle, and of course all his good Christian friends were praying for him, so they just started praying for me too! Since I was getting closer and closer to faith in the true Christ anyway, this was just the nudge I needed. It wasn't that I knew that they were praying for me or even would have approved, because they were all, according to me, a bunch of lily-livered wimps who looked pretty boring.

One morning while I was walking in the park with my dog, I was praying as usual, when I just had the overwhelming conviction that what I was praying to was a person and that his Name was Jesus and that he was rightfully Lord of my life. It wasn't a very emotional experience. But I did realise at once that my life would have to change, and somehow I had made the preparations in my mind to be willing. Perhaps the inherent chaos of my life (See "Were you happy as a gay man?") had plowed the ground up.

The bottom line is that I knew from my past growing up in a conservative Afrikaans Community, what the Bible said about homosexuality (For a discussion on the subject, click here) . I found myself saying to my new Lord that, whereas I was gay and I knew what he thought about that lifestyle, I wouldn't be able to change myself, so I would expect him to change me if he wanted to. The rest of that story is told at "Do you ever think about having sex with a man anymore?" and "How has being a Christian influenced your sexuality?

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS), Struggle (RSS)

Do you ever think about having sex with a man anymore?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:46 AM by Duncan Bouwer

Once again, there is a short answer and a long explanation. The short answer is... "NO!"

I believe strongly that if you make up your mind that this is not an option anymore, you are able to take a big step in the direction of being free from the desire to have sex with a man. It's the same as any heterosexual couple who have a monogamous relationship. If you are unwillingly trapped into a relationship where you would rather be with anybody but your spouse/partner, then your eyes will stray and you will consciously or unconsciously be on the lookout for an opportunity to sleep with somebody else. If, in the back of your mind you are secretly convinced that there is somebody else out there that would be better to be with than your current "partner" then you will sniffing the wind for other opportunities.

But if you are convinced that what is happening in your life is the best that God can have for you, then you will not be looking out for something else. This is the case with me.

Firstly, I am convinced that it is not God's will for me to act out same-sex attractions. So, right from the start I avoided everything that could put me in a place where I would be vulnerable to something like that. As time went by the reason for the need to be united with a man sexually diminished more and more. God the Father poured love and affirmation of my masculinity into that space where the emptiness exists and so I am more and more enabled to act out my destiny as a whole man.

It is interesting that when I don't spend regular time in God's presence worshiping him and being in a place to receive his love and affirmation, then I become more vulnerable. It's a basic principle of walking in the Spirit. (Contact Mark Sutherland of "Open Arms" to get his book "Born Gay, so What?") I am able to conform to my true identity to the degree that I fulfil my true calling, namely, to worship the Father and submit my will and identity to him for his shaping.

The cynics will be saying that this proves that I can never change completely, and in a sense this is true. I will probably never be fully heterosexual. But I am free enough to live my life as a husband and father to a degree that is satisfying to me and my family, and I am becoming more and more free all the time.

I am never overcome by an irresistible urge to sleep with a man. The worst it gets is that sometime I am aware of a man in a way that plays into my insecurities in a particular way, and I must be careful to make sure that I guard my heart and mind (see the article I wrote about that) and go where the real need can be met. This genuinely works. I go into my study, put on some worship music and cry out my pain and loneliness to the Father. It is not the man that I have seen that I need, but rather the affirmation of my Lord, and then, I kid you not, everything is OK.

It's no good just fighting the urges. They only become stronger if we resist them without applying the medication that God provided. We must go to the source to quench our real thirst. GOD IS FAITHFUL!

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS), Struggle (RSS)

Do you enjoy sex with your wife?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:40 AM by Duncan Bouwer

The short answer is "YES!" I have never struggled in my sexual attraction to my wife. I know some gay men cannot even imagine themselves in bed with a woman. They are completely turned off by the thought of having heterosexual sex. This is not the case with me, and I don't think it ever was. My issues with my mother did not leave that kind of scar on my sexuality (see " Why do you think you turned out like this? " for a full explanation).

It was more that I was overwhelmingly sexually attracted to men. Once that was in the process of being dealt with (see "Do you ever think about having sex with a man anymore?") I was free to enjoy sex with my wife.

The problems (yes there are some) come with the sexual habits I learned as a gay man, and these are far more difficult to get rid of than the actual attraction to men. The first and most difficult, is the ingrained notion that my wife should take as short a time as I to get turned on (after all, a male sexual partner does). Because it takes her roughly 10 times as long as me to become sexually aroused, I sometimes find it very daunting to try to initiate sexual contact with her. (This is called laziness). In my understanding this is a problem most heterosexual men face. This is just the way God has created us, and so it is something we have to learn to deal with in a sacrificial way. From what I understand, most men get around this problem by just having sex with their wives anyway, and so the woman never has a satisfying experience.

This forces us to work with our wives in a way that maintains personal intimacy between us in an ongoing way, and most men fail in this regard, from what I hear from people I know who have no homosexual past.

Another component is the fact that, as a result of years of masturbation, I really struggle with premature ejaculation. This is a particularly private thing to share on a Website like this, but it is only fair to try and warn people that their habits will have consequences in later life, that may complicate matters.

Masturbation itself is also a problem I have to deal with. Most men do, apparently, and since it satisfies me so easily and without any (time consuming) foreplay, it robs my wife of intimacy. This is not something which directly results from any feelings about sex with my wife, but rather an adolescent habit which I have to keep a check on all the time.

How much more than that would you like to know? (smile)

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS), Struggle (RSS)

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 AM

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS), My Story (RSS), Struggle (RSS)

Can you honestly say it was worth it?

Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008 at 8:09 AM by Duncan Bouwer

I can. On a purely practical level, I stood a good chance of getting aids. The kind of sex practised by homosexuals most often includes use of alcohol and drugs, and certainly did in my case, and one tends to be a little lax about protection under those circumstances.

I would not have wanted to continue as I was. I was an intelligent man who would never have been able to think of myself as anything but an ageing 18-year old, talented, but never able to come into my own because of my profound brokenness.

But most deeply, if I had let my homosexuality stand between me and God for ever, I would never have got to know Jesus, and this would have been the defining tragedy of my life. The Christ Principle does not have the compassion of the flesh-and-bone Jesus whom I serve and love, and who gives profound meaning and purpose to my life. I worship him because he has saved me from myself and destruction. He has given me new life which has enabled me to be adopted into the family of Yahweh, and so I will worship him eternally, sharing with him in never ending joy of his presence.

Yes, it has been worth it!

Posted in About Me (RSS), Archive (RSS)

Born Gay, so what?

Posted on Saturday, February 09, 2008 at 6:25 PM by Duncan Bouwer

There has been a lot of discussion on the topic of the Gay Gene. There may be a genetic component to homosexualityand probably is. The issue is, presuming there is a genetic component to homosexuality, what do we do with that?

Actually, it doesn't change anything. The bible still doesn't condone homosexual practises. To say something is natural doesn't mean we should just go ahead and do it. Stealing is natural to some people, yet it is universally unacceptable.

Posted in Archive (RSS)

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LIVING WATERS vs. BROKEN CISTERNS

"Normal Homosex?

The Bible and Homosexuality

WHY WE SUFFER

How does one become gay?

GUARD YOUR HEART 1

June 26, 2005

Changing

Co-creators, with Christ, of the New Creation

24 June 2004 II

My Jouney

Were you always attracted to boys/men?

When did you first act out?

Were you happy as a gay man?

What made you decide to try to change?

Do you ever think about having sex with a man anymore?

Do you enjoy sex with your wife?

How has being a Christian influenced your sexuality?

Can you honestly say it was worth it?

Born Gay, so what?