How do you tell Christian culture that you were on the brink of questioning everything you thought you knew?
I was on the other side of the curtain seeing people who didn’t externally fit the mold of what the church would call Christian yet these very people were in submission to and full of praise towards a God that I too believe in. Our natural desires of attraction weren’t wired the same but we both shared a love for the same higher power. Did the external representation really matter more than the internal? The question, “What if we got it wrong?” played in my head more times than I could count. What if we misunderstood the overall message in the gospel and went too far in our processes of interpretation? Is my sin of sex outside of marriage really any different than someone else laying in bed with the same gender? His design and intention were simple yet the hearts of His creation didn’t naturally conform to those plans.
Instead of deep-diving into the controversy, I was stirring up among my peers, I took my confusion and went rogue. I wasn’t interested in repetitive information that was already stamped on my mind and heart. I was more interested in hearing from God in a deeper, raw, and unfiltered way like never before as I became more attentive towards those whose hearts beamed of His love yet actions weren’t always in alignment with His word, including my own. I spent the last two years trusting that God was hearing me as I embarked on developing the road of understanding how two very different walks of life could draw the same conclusions regarding salvation, sanctification, and faith yet be labeled by society as saved and unsaved. His word says if you believe in your heart that Jesus is the Son, you will be saved, not if you believed and behaved. If that were the case and behavior is a part of the deal, then hell is going to be one crowded place.
What made this isolated time so rich was the process of seeking God in the living world. I welcomed conversations from individuals of different religious backgrounds and even entertained the firm dialect from conservatives who gave me a very stern “I do not agree with this understanding you’re coming to.” Truth be told, you don’t have to agree with me. I was never looking for validation from people but a peace of mind from the one who knit me together. I was coming to realize that the concerns we raised over sexual orientation never mattered and sought more opportunities to change lives in the areas where it did. Salvation and sanctification are two very different processes. We push sanctification and judge when people don’t meet the expectations we’ve placed before them. We hear exclamations of salvation and question its validity when they don’t think, live and act according to what they’re claiming. What good would my policing of actions be if the heart was still wicked? What would it matter if someone’s life came to an end and the only accomplishment they’d have was depriving themselves of love, however, their soul was craving it? None of it was any of my concern.
My worship for my God became so deep that making a statement as bold as “I don’t care if you’re gay or like to dress as the opposite gender” felt freeing. Because I wrestled for so long keeping that statement hidden from man. God already knew what I felt, and if I couldn’t hide it from Him, there was no need to hide it any further from anyone else. & still, that is the hill I am willing to die on. Because He knows my intent, mission, and purpose behind looking past it. When you take yourself out of the noise and the hasty generalizations regarding something that’s hardly even mentioned biblically yet magnified in the hearts, you come to a new place of peace and understanding. That is, that if there was any purpose to any of this life, the reason He even came, it was love. & it was love that saved us, love, that freed us and love that is needed to continue to push this nation forward.