Sexuality – No Small Talk

My “sex talk” meets Jesus

By the way I’m still following Josh’s series – awesome stuff still going on over there… Visit the latest entry.

After endearing years of sexual confusion, and misidentification, God would use one of the few heterosexual attractions in my life to lead me to Him. This young lady that I had a crush on, had an encounter with God in 1998, and all throughout my Junior year in high school I would be invited to Church – never taking the invitation seriously. However, in spring of 1999 I decided to attend a service, only to find out that she had a boyfriend…

The message that day was about grace – and that we were free to receive it at anytime… it hit a spot inside me, I wasn’t sure why, but it did. I imagine that the years of confusion, the struggles with my sexuality, and the deepest parts of me wanted to be free of the things that I knew deep down were not right. Later that year, in the summer, I would be caught up in God’s full grace and have a heart knowledge awareness of it – during the song “Step by step” I could not stop myself from agreeing with the lyrics – I decided that day to let him lead my way – although I had no idea what that would mean.

Did I stop feeling homosexual desires? – No. Did I stop masturbating? – No. Did I understand His grace – No… do I understand it today? – Nope.

What I experienced that day though was the mystery of God – that his grace is unending, that even when I make the conscience decision to disobey, to walkout a fantasy, His grace takes me to a new level of love that only God himself provides. In these past ten years, I have received grace beyond any understanding. Each time I fall, I fall harder into His love, and deeper into Him.

My sexuality is deeply connected to who God is to me, it is the core of where he dwells for me, and it is out of this wound, this past, which much of who I am today comes from. He has redeemed it, to be the instrument in which He uses me to speak from, to live from, and yet it is still the thorn in my side. The marriage bed has been incredibly healing and incredibly frustrating – that’s my next installment.

Sexaholism…Another one from the tracks

Some more thoughts from my commute home, I’ll fix up the post from a computer later.

Ever since the tent incident, I have struggled with the desire for sexual pleasure outside of marriage. Learning about this kind of “on-demand” pleasure set me up for much confusion, some of which continues to this day. For me the pleasure was escape, escape from the constant voice that said I was not important, not cool, and not needed. However, as I turned to masturbation and lived from fantasy to fantasy I just could not get the same level of pleasure.

I began using the Internet for playing out all kinds of fantasies. The “friend” from the tent also would use fantasy ideas on me, and I would unwillingly allow it to happen. Overtime I found myself hating and desiring all of it. I questioned my sexual orientation for years, with my heart desiring women and my flesh desiring the fantasies.

From 12 years old to 20, I never told a single soul of my struggles nor of the events that took place. I felt trapped. Around the age of 15, the “friend” finally disappeared from my life and I thank God that I never actually tried to live out any of the fantasies or pursue anything with anyone else.

So how would I get to the place that I am today? It all started 10 years ago… but I’ll have to write that tomorrow – Next stop: Gresham City Hall, one more stop to go.

In the beginning -there was sex and more

So I was debating on writing today, but seeing as I am on the Max that had a 10 min delay due to mechanical issues on the train ahead of us – I’ll write something. I am writing this from my phone and so expect some grammar and spelling issues.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I want to go deeper into the “why” behind my first feelings. Why did I feel shame and guilt at this first sexual experience? Why would that happen?

I have often thought about this because I did not grow up in a strict Christian household. Nonetheless, sex simply wasn’t talked about and most of what I had learned up to that point was all scholastic, simply informational “sex education” as the State of Washington had required. Some of my feelings I believe were culturally ingrained, small town, some of it just ignorance, and the rest natural.

Even before I had any kind of tangible relationship with God, I had an awareness of Him. I remember that first sexual encounter as feeling overall wrong. I believe it was God’s small voice and the fact that it didn’t feel natural, but/and all at the same time it was very natural. So why all this confusion? Because the pleasure was natural and good, but the relationship was wrong. God made me, and all of us, so much more than just someone’s personal pleasure-servant.

Because deep down I wanted to be accepted by my peers, my “friends”, I would do whatever for this. I would lie just to save face, and I would do things, and participate in things that I perceived as a way to gain acceptance. The events that took place in that tent were only the beginning of nearly 5 years of sexual encounters with the same friend. I never felt right about it, but always desired it. I hated it and wanted it. This “friend” would constantly ask me to do new things, always for him, and always denying me outside of the events.

Then one day, about 4 and a half years into this, it happened – he completely rejected me calling me gay, unwanted, and threatening to use it as blackmail if I ever said anything. But then a month later he “invited” me to a lakefront cabin.

Adam and Eve had sex, fully aware of God’s presence… This is the significant difference that I am now rebuilding into my sexuality. It has taken over a decade of processing to even begin to feel sexually at peace.

Where to begin with sex

I have been following Josh’s blog series on Sex and have fully enjoyed every word written. When it comes to the ideas revolving around human sexuality I have so many places I could go with it. As many things in my life these days it is hard to know where to start, as nothing anymore is black and white. So, I decided to start with the most logical beginning I could think of – a chorographical story of my sex life. I’ll spring into different sub-topics as we walk along the path.

The following is simply my own personal observations, experiences, and feelings at the time of the said events. Some of the events may be described in details that some may find offensive, I include them so the depth of reality can be reached. Because sexuality can have so many connotations, both inside and outside the American Christian culture I simply ask just one thing of my readers, don’t add nor subtract from my words. If something doesn’t make sense or you want clarification – all you need to do is ask – don’t assume, presume, nor fill in the blanks. I will be writing in small chunks for the short attention span readers out there.

My first experience with sexuality came around the age of 12, in a tent in the backyard of a friend’s house. This friend was a couple of years older than I was, I remember him asking me “Do you masturbate”… I think I said yes, only because I had heard of it, but didn’t really know what it was. He proceeded to undress himself and ask me to give him a “hand job” – which I had no idea what he meant, I think he thought I was afraid or something and so instead, he grabbed my hand, and said “like this” and proceeded to demonstrate what he wanted me to do to him. I distinctly remember having this feeling of utter, guilt, confusion, fear, and curiosity all at the same time. After he was satisfied, he then proceeded to “help” me experience my first orgasm by way of a hand job as well. The whole incident laid the groundwork for my sex life. At the time, I was not sure why I felt what I felt, there were strong feelings, both good and bad, there was shame, and there was pleasure.

The feelings I associated that day I believe stem from my ignorance at the time (not having sexual advice, ideas, nor values passed down to me) and from my own insecurity as a pre-teen that put all my identity into what other’s thought of me. More on those last two points later on, for now we can just dwell on this first sexual encounter and mull over those thoughts.

The sex fight

For a lot of Christian men there is a struggle to keep sexually pure. Now I realize that there are a lot of definitions of “purity” out there, it seem that some think masterbation is okay, and others think dressing in a sexually attractive way is okay, while some believe that not talking about any of these things is okay as well. Yes, we’ve heard this over and over, and I am still not convinced that the Church at large (the full body of Christ) has really taken this on. As I speak to more and more men I realize the need for a new Church culture that speaks Truth and Grace into the suxual purity issue.

I guess I take a hybrid, or middle of the ground, approach to these things. I believe that most of the time people don’t take a deep look into the reasons behind these struggles. We, in the Church, have taken the appraoch of “think no evil, see no evil, speak no evil”. When, from what I observe this has lead us to isolation, shame, doubt, and in many cases deep wounds that fester anger and fear, Jesus instructed us to not have even a hint of lust. Yet he forgives.

You see, I know that the enemy plays with this part of our lives because it is so destructive towards our ability to relate to God, and to others. We can easily become isolated and cut off and then allowing people to Love us, and for us to Love others becomes increasingly hard due to the shame that surrounds our heart. So I ask, what is the root of these “problems”, how do we replace these desires with healthy ones? What is a healthy desire?

I am far from the answer, only recently have I began to fully grasp the freedom of exercising true freedom in this area. My past makes it difficult, but I know that He who is in me, is stronger than he who is in the world.

Love the hell out

True love of others and of God is loving the hell out of people. Not shaming people, but giving them grace to be human, to be selfish, to be well, full of sin. We simply can not expect people who haven’t given their life and heart to Jesus to understand our values, principles, and morals. We can’t logically argue with a person who doesn’t understand living by faith. We can try, but many times (not all) it’s in vain. Someone who is avidly pro-choice abortion, or pro same-sex marriages, isn’t going to understand the reason having faith nulls those issues.

Faith gives us a much bigger understanding beyond ourselves, it gives us the courage to carry a child even when circumstances are terrible. It gives us the courage to see that our sexuality is more than physical. Faith gives us the understanding that God will take it into his hands when we give it to him. My faith in Him has relieved me of my homosexual desires. Having faith gives us the courage to tithe first and give our offerings even when when our bank account is empty or negative and we still have hundreds of dollars of bills.

So, we must first love people, live in faith, and remind ourselves that Hell is real. When we love people, in and out of the Church, we bring them out of Hell and into the Kingdom of God. That is why Jesus is the savior. He desires for us to be in relationship with him, not stuck in Hell, 100% alone, but with the knowledge that Jesus simply wanted our hearts so he could bless us in our free will to choose him. Those that do end up in Hell, they won’t be partying, they won’t be hanging out with like minded people, they’ll be utterly alone, unable to be in relationship for eternity, yet knowing, and I believe seeing the rest in relationship and living in the glory of God.

So, love the hell out of people. Bless them. Speak the truth. Live in faith. Live the truth of God’s love.

Anouncement!

The news of 2007 is:

Alexis and I are having a baby!!!

Back on our anniversary we thought we may have been pregnant, although we were on the “pill”, Alexis took a few different pregnancy tests, all came out negative. Then on our trip there were a few symptoms that we decided Alexis should see the doctor, so on Tuesday of this past week she did exactly that.

By Wednesday at 9am she found out, she is 12 weeks pregnant! Which means our little one has already been to France and Poland 😛

The baby is due March 11th at this point. It’s crazy, it’s kinda fast, but we were ready to start trying in September anyway! So God’s provision we know is coming!

Love you all! Thanks for your prayers and support!

Pure Desire

I don’t have the words to describe how amazing the men’s group that I go to on Saturday mornings is. It isn’t just a “guy’s talking about their problems” group, it’s a truly loving group, completely sincere in purely desiring God. Because of this group I have tools that have made me so much more aware of why I do the things I don’t want to do and why I don’t do what I do want to do. I have so much more of a life because of what God has done for me, using these men, using relationships that a mere 5 years ago I would have thought to be impossible. While I still struggle in doing things I do not want to do, I at least know that my desire to be pure and set apart is where God wants me to be. I’m beginning to get a slight glimpse of where God wants to direct me, in the mean time before Poland.