All for His Glory

I got home the day I posted my blog to find that this blog had reached 1,700 people within 12 hours. I sat on my couch in tears as I was fully realizing that God is seriously working in my life. I MEAN 1,700 IN TWELVE HOURS. COME ON PEOPLE. THAT'S CRAZY. The total since Thursday is over 3,000. I cannot take any credit for anything I have done. It is all for His glory. Thank you, Jesus. 

I also got several Facebook messages asking me questions regarding what I believe and what this means for my sexuality. I also think I need to clear up some loose-ends in the coming posts.

Here is my attempt to answer all these questions and thoughts in one. This is what I have come to believe:

Before there was anything, there was God. God saw fit to create the universe and all the things we see today, and it was good. 

     ***On a random side note, I have always thought it was super cool that God said, "Let there be light," (Gen. 1:3) before he even created the sun which was on the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-18).*** 

Anyways, I think we can all agree that what God created is good. Then God created man (Gen. 1:26-28, 2:7). He created man out of the "dust of the ground" and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life..." At that moment, Adam entered into a relationship with God. What is so interesting about this is that God had not yet made Eve so Adam had not entered into a sexual relationship with anyone. Looking at that Scripture we see that our relationship with God precedes our sexuality. Then God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him" (Gen. 2:18). So he created woman while man was sleeping. This is important to realize: God created woman while man was sleeping (Gen 2:21). *Another cool note is that woman was the only thing to be created from something else. Everything else that God created he called into being, but with woman he created out of man.* Man did not know this was happening. This allowed the opportunity for woman and God to have that same personal relationship that man had with God. Sexuality still did not exist. It's only when God "brought her to the man" that sexuality began. (Gen. 2:22-25)

I bet you're thinking, "Where is he going with this?..."

Well, here's my first point. The biggest thing that I came to learn is that before there was any sexuality, both man and woman had a relationship with God. I realized after talking with my pastor who explained this to me, that in order to be truly dependent on God, I had to have a personal relationship with him before there was any sexuality. It was like God was slapping me in the face and saying, "Stop worrying about your sexuality and look at Me!!! You're putting your identity in your sexuality and not Me! How can you know Me when your worried about your sexuality?!" I think His handprint on my face left a mark because it changed me. I felt a huge release of relief. At this point, it didn't matter what my sexuality was. I only needed to lean on Jesus to restore me. From the moment I understood this, an almost immediate drop in ANY homosexual desires occurred. It was a miracle, of sorts. Or it was and still is to me, at least. The thoughts that once dominated my mind were basically... gone. I'm not saying that they were completely eliminated, but severely diminished. On a percentage scale, it would be like having homosexual desires at 80% and after coming to my realization, it dropped to maybe 20%. I mean, that's a big deal considering that men think about sex like ALL of the time, and that the gay community finds most of their identity in their sexuality. 

I remember my first homosexual thought after my realization. I was sitting in a church I had been visiting and after zoning out of the sermon, my mind... went places. It was hard to focus on the sermon and the more I tried not to think about it, the more the images grew. After I kind of snapped out of it and thought to myself, "You're in church, why are you thinking about this?!" I immediately saw it as a massive attack from the Devil to try and distract me from hearing God's word. I immediately and simply prayed, "God... help, help, help me through this." They were gone. I haven't been very good at prayer. I usually get distracted by my constantly moving mind. I finally saw what true prayer can do. It was amazing. 

So to answer the question plainly, where does this leave my sexuality? Well, in all honesty, I will never date another man. Do I find men more attractive than women at the moment? Yes to an extent. I'm hoping that changes with time as God works in me. I've always wanted the wife and kids with the house in the suburbs. (This is something that I've always thought strange). But any desire to be with a man, or think of a man in a homosexual way hardly crosses my mind now. And if it does? I pray for the strength to fight my temptations. I believe that everyone has that one sin deep down that they can't really tell anyone about. Mine just happens to be homosexuality. It is widely known that sins are equal (on both sides of the spectrum). Homosexual lust does not differ from heterosexual lust, (well except for one big difference). Homosexuality is the temptation, falling into that temptation is the sin.

My pastor showed me this testimony of a woman who had been a lesbian for decades. It's pretty powerful. Her last words hit home. It's chilling, and so true to my heart. They are:

"And my former life lurks in the edges of my heart, shiny and still like a knife."

Here's the link if you want to read:
Rosaria Butterfield's Testimony