Though by using the word “gay” I am really just describing the type of relationship I think government parties and representatives have with themselves and their relative perspectives, I thought I probably shouldn’t use the word “gay” as a comparison without sharing my own perspectives on the subject. It’s an emotion-packed subject, and not knowing how I think about it could change how you see what I am saying.
…If that makes sense.
I should say up front that though it’s becoming less popular to be so nowadays, I’m a Bible-believing Christian. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going where you think I’m going with this.
When I was in Boston, I had a friend who was gay [a friend of a friend, and he became a (platonic) friend of mine too]. I saw his reaction to me when we were first introduced. It didn’t take much to see that there was something about “Christians” that he was afraid of.
It seems to me there’s often this assumption that all Christians hate gays, or (if we’re a Christian) that we should.
(While I do not choose that lifestyle for reasons of my own, a person is a person, after all. Why should we treat them as if they were not?)
…And because, as I see it, when Jesus physically walked on the earth, I don’t think He did either. Look how he treated the woman caught in adultery (a sin punishable by death in His day). (Strange how the ones who brought her to Jesus didn’t bring along the guy she committed adultery with as well. Adultery is a two-person affair!)
And He said, among other things, “Judge not, that you be not judged,” and “I did not come into the world to condemn the world, I came to save it.”
My gay friend is a very sweet and sensitive guy. He came once a week to spend time with my landlady’s adopted son, and afterwards we would usually have a conversation. I liked him. He’s a very nice, very thoughtful person.
When my landlady/employer (not Christian) introduced me to him, she told him in the same breath that I was a Christian.
I swear, he backed away from me about a foot. It was not hard to see that to him, there was something less than ideal associated with “Christian”.
I believe God cares as much about people who make different choices than I do as He does me. Whatever I believe, who am I to expect those who don’t believe as I do to do things my way?
After all, Jesus said, “Whosoever will (wants to) may come.” Not “everyone must be forced to do it my way.”
It’s a choice. We all have to make choices. And let’s face it, we all have God-given needs built into us that practically require us to do something to get them met. We just employ different ways of getting them met based on a number of factors that are important to us.
It appears to me that (just like most heterosexuals do), when looking for a partner, gays basically subconsciously look for someone to help them work on whatever issues they have left over from their past, someone who can complement their weaknesses and strengths.
On my side of things, I believe a true Christian gets any ability to do things differently because he or she has chosen to ask God to live with and inside of them, and He gives them a new heart and a new mind. How would anything God requires of a Christian apply to someone who has not chosen to be one?
Let me be clear. I do believe God asks me, as a follower of Him, not to have that lifestyle myself. From Scripture, the reason seems to be that “those who do so reap the results in their own bodies.” Whatever tendencies I may have, I’m just not interested in those results for myself.
And I know all about “reaping the results in my own body” in another way–I love ice cream. Every time I eat it, I notice my body registers the results in pounds and indigestion and other nasty things. I prefer not to have any more results in my own body of that kind. (Easier said than done!)
I guess most of us do things the way we do because we perceive that they work for us, or maybe just because they’ve become a comfortable way for us to relate, or do them, or emotionally bear things .
For me, believing as I do gives me certain benefits in the spiritual arena if I do things God’s way. And I want those benefits.
I’m explaining, because I just want you to know what I’ll miss out on if I decide to do things contrary to how God says I’m to do them.
One of the benefits of knowing God personally is that I can communicate with Him whenever I want (whether I say anything out loud or not), and know that He will hear and take care of me. I know that both through Scriptures and by experience.
God’s care of me may not happen in the way that I expect. He might ask me to do some things too (they might come in the form of responsibilities, or something). It may also take a lot longer than I expect or prefer.
(Have to tell you, though. Though some say “God always does things on time”, that doesn’t always mean that “on time” is according to any human timetable! They’re right about it being “in time” for whatever thing God is doing, but what God does may seem to take way too long for the thing I think is supposed to happen!!!)
It certainly doesn’t mean I don’t or won’t suffer sometimes along the way. (Some people, like Job in the Bible, suffer a great deal in their lives. Suffering seems to be a part of everyone’s life in some way if they live long enough.)
I’ve been around long enough to see God do what He does in amazing ways, at times. Sometimes He does things that benefit me in ways others can’t see or do anything about, too.
(Truthfully, I’d just as soon others didn’t know about some of the benefits sometimes. I can get away with more. However…)
Just as a President is supposed to be “perfect” (is there any such thing?), somehow there’s this perception that if you are a Christian, you are supposed to be perfect, or something.
(Well, maybe we’re supposed to be perfect in attitude, as Jesus says He requires that of us. But I really don’t think that means we’re going to automatically do everything right simply because we believe in Jesus. I John says if we say we have no sin, we are liars, and the truth is not in us.)
Being a Christian doesn’t mean I am flawless. It does mean if He points something out to me, I need to ask for forgiveness and correct the direction I’m going.
It means that (however wrathful I may have learned He is) I do have a good God.
It means I have Someone on my side Who has a good plan in mind for me and has promised to go through the hard things with me, “working all things together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
At times it might feel like everything has gone wrong in my life, and that nothing can ever be straightened out again. But somehow even out of bad things, God can and does bring good things for those who believe in Him, including me. Most of the time, though, I’m “in process”, and it’s often not obvious what He’s done until I’m on the other side of it.
Prayer
Our local paper had an article about a study done by some group to find out if “prayer” works.
My question is, if they don’t believe there is a God, how could it even work? The last I knew, “prayer” has to connect with someone powerful enough to do something about what we’re asking.
Prayer is the natural communication between me and the One who made me. We’re asking Someone who can actually do something to Do Something, usually for us or for someone else or about a situation.
Prayer is an outgrowth of my relationship with God, and it also requires me to follow the terms of His covenant with those of us who’ve chosen to go His way.
To get results from my prayers, I find I need to keep my relationship with Him in good shape. That requires that I do what He says.
I have at times chosen to do things on my own terms. And though God forgives and keeps giving me chances when I don’t deserve them, I’ve also reaped the consequences, at times, when I have chosen to go against what He has asked me to do.
One of the consequences of not doing what God asks me to do is that I am not consistently able to pray and get answers to my prayers. I need to do what He says to have His benefits.
For me to abstain from a gay lifestyle does not mean I’m trying to make a statement or say anything about anyone else thereby. I just want to do what it takes to keep my relationship current with my Heavenly Father.
The way I see it, God made me. That means He knows how I was made to function. When I ignore the standards He set up for humankind, things go wrong, and once they do, they can take a long time to resolve in a healthy way.
Getting to know Him means I get really used to having these (sometimes unexplainable) benefits that I’ll lose if I decide to ignore what He says!
If your lifestyle is different than mine, and I choose to keep it that way, rest assured it may not have anything to do with what I think of you.
Nature
Because most people refer to what I call God’s program for the earth as “nature”, I’m going to call it nature from here on out.
I learned when studying alternative health care subjects that the closer a food is to the way it came to us in nature, the better our bodies can use the nutrients in it for maintaining proper health.
The more processed or altered a food is when we eat it, the more likely we are, at some point in our lives, to suffer health problems in one way or another if we eat it, even if nutrients are added back in.
Enriching a food after taking nutrients out of it can actually cause certain vitamins to be even more out of balance in our bodies (such as the B vitamins, when they are added back in to denatured cereals) than before.
Our bodies were made to move in order to renew themselves physically and to keep them flexible and healthy. (Wouldn’t it be nice if cars worked that way?)
The more we follow nature’s laws in moving our bodies the right amount, in the right way, the more we can generally expect to be renewed and energized physically and mentally. The more consistently we exercise in the right way, the more chance we have of living healthfully for a long time.
I think this also applies to the way our spirits and souls function, too. We do best on all levels as human beings when we try to live closest to the healthy patterns of life. Patterns like treating others with dignity, respecting the boundaries of marriage, giving children the right kinds of attention at the right times, respecting others’ rights to own property, and so on. Certain aspects of our beings can get mangled just in the press of life, otherwise.
And I figure the outward choices we see some people make might just be a result of being “mangled” in one’s soul in early life, in some way. We have to get our needs met somehow, and if things aren’t fixed the right way, we might feel a need for other kinds of solutions.
Or something like that.
A Single’s Perspective
I decided to share some things I have learned during my years as a single that might relate to this. For better or for worse, I might have a different perspective in this area than others who believe similar to the way I do, because of it.
Part of the reason I am sharing this is because I have noticed that I had some things in common with the gay guy I knew, such as the fact that both of us went into deep depression after our fathers died. I don’t know about him, but my depression over my father’s death lasted a long, long time.
And I noticed that as soon as my gay friend’s dad died, he decided he didn’t want to come visit the little boy anymore. (Abandonment.)
I wondered if his own dad do that to him in some way? I’ve read that throughout the generations, we tend to continue to do the kinds of things that were done to us, unless the cycle is stopped in some way.
It kind of makes me wonder if, at the heart of things, my friend and I might have a common reason for our “relationship status”. (If that makes sense.) Maybe there was a common reason for our choices or lack thereof? I don’t know. (Abandonment? “Daddy” stuff?)
Fathers, I have heard and read, can make a significant difference in the outcome of a child’s life, just by how he treats his little ones and his involvement with them. Does he interact with them? Does he put them down consistently and tell them they are no good? Does he beat them, or abandon them, or fail to keep promises to them?
Or does he stick by them, talk to them, build them up and encourage them, and teach them to do what he does, taking them with him where he goes at times and demonstrating with his life what a good authority figure looks like–strong, patient, understanding and caring? (I may have forgotten some. Good dads are good for a lot of things.)
All those things (or the lack thereof) can affect the life of a child dramatically, especially after he or she grows up.
Criminals, Chuck Colson’s ministry discovered, almost all love their mothers and want to send Mother’s Day cards to them. Almost none wanted to send a card to their dads. (Well, that could just mean that they don’t see it as manly to send cards to their fathers, I don’t know.)
Maybe I don’t see all the reasons for that. I do know many women get very upset if their special days are not remembered in some way. (Not all–I’m one of the world’s worst at remembering special days. Just ask my friend Karen!)
To me, this just says marriage between a man and a woman is still the ideal plan. God intended for both a daddy’s influence, support, and time and a mom’s love and nurturing to be the normal foundation for emotional well-being in the life of every child.
Men and women have two completely different perspectives and roles in life, even if they learn to blend their styles, and both are desperately needed in the molding of a healthy child in his developing years.
In My Own Life…
As a single, I have long had my own set of problems when it comes to finding a partner with whom I can share my life.
For a long time, I struggled with why I was so inept in this area. It’s not that I don’t do a lot of reading on the subject, because I do!
(Well, it’s been painfully obvious all along that I don’t live up to the beauty standards most men require now. But besides that…)
As someone who’s been single a long time, though, I probably have a few perspectives that are a little different from most of what is expressed in mainstream Christianity.
I’m just in a different place, let’s face it.
I have done a lot of reading about the differences between men and women, and reasons why relationships work or don’t work. For a long time, I also tried just about everything (aside from doing things outside of the standards of Scripture) to make something work.
It never did.
And now, even though God gave me a special promise that He would bring to me the one He had for me, and that I would be married, it’s no longer a priority to find anyone (just for the record).
God gave me a calling that I believe is more important, for one thing, and I find I am often happier in my single state than some of my married friends are. I feel quite grateful I never married, to be frank. (I probably would have chosen a partner who would not have worked out, given my propensities for finding relationships that don’t work!)
After His promise to me, God did do a lot of work in my life, bringing people into my life who helped me learn more about people and relationships. However, the more I studied about the subject of marriage and family, the more it appeared to me that I really am not the kind of person who would be the best at making a man happy.
One thing I discovered was that I needed “daddy work”. And, having tried counseling a few times, counseling didn’t ever seem to be the kind of thing that could make up for the place that never seemed to form in me.
I had, I think, a great dad in many ways. Personality-wise I identified with him, too. He was quiet and sensitive (“genteel”, some called him), the kind of guy I’ve always kind of looked for in a husband myself.
Maybe seeing his good qualities was part of the reason it was so hard to figure out why I had so many difficulties in this area–I basically saw him as a good guy.
The only thing is, I only remember one time when he ever talked with me directly. He would even be in our house a great deal sometimes (he couldn’t do too much farming in wintertime), but he’d almost always be doing his own thing when he was. He’d talk to the boys in the family, and he’d talk to my sisters when they gave him trouble, but I only remember him talking to me once, directly.
I tried to do everything right and stay out of his way, basically. Apparently I figured that was what was expected of me.
That expectation was confirmed once when he asked one of my sisters why she couldn’t be more like me. “Quiet” and “stay out of my way” was good, to him.
My siblings and I were not allowed to date until we got out of high school. That meant that we had “zero” guidance on the subject of dating from our parents, growing up (other than giving me a Christian book on dating). The only siblings in my family who have married were first “parented” by someone else as well, after they left home, maybe for a similar reason?
Part of the problem may have been that dad didn’t believe he and mom should show affection in front of us kids. I don’t know about my siblings, but I didn’t learn what healthy affection was supposed to look like, at home.
I confess, for a long time I never knew anything about what made relationships with the opposite sex work, and I have made such a terrible mess of almost every relationship I’ve ever had with a guy!
I don’t think my dad ever meant anything by his lack of attention to us girls. To him, that was just what being a good Christian father was–he followed what some considered to be Christian standards at the time. He was shy, too, and probably didn’t know how to interact with girls, even his own. That’s what his own dad did, no doubt.
At one point I learned I had experienced what is called “abandonment” in my childhood, and then I did some reading on the subject.
One book I read said that the only kind of woman a man should avoid marrying is the woman who has had an “absent” father (emotionally and/or physically) growing up, or a father who did not participate in some way in a healthy father/daughter relationship with her. That woman, the book said, would make his life hell.
Well, that was me. I have been looking for my “father” all my life. It’s a blank space inside that feels as if it cannot legitimately become what it needs to be in the right way, unless God does it, now. There are no handles to hold on to inside in certain places–they just never formed, I think. I don’t know how else to explain it.
I’m not particularly looking for anyone to fix that anymore, but now there are other reasons I don’t consider marrying, at the moment.
Temperamentally, if a man were to marry me, he would have to live with a “Joan of Arc”-type personality that needs to “save the world”/needs a mission to be happy. (That’s difficult for most families to handle, I hear). (My dad was kind of like that, too, but mostly he just had a lot of ideas and interests he wanted to pursue. It’s hard to do that when you have six kids.)
My spouse would have to put up with someone with something like a professor/Einstein-type way of thinking that can completely lose touch with anything and anyone for days on end at times, because everything I experience on those days tends to be focused on whatever subject I am thinking about. (Einstein, I read, also had trouble with relationships because he was not always “all there”.)
Which is to Say…
What I’m trying to say is I figure most of us probably have a hole in the fabric of our lives in some way because of things that did not happen for us that needed to. (Baggage.) I have theories about why people might do one thing or another, but there are too many possible reasons, such as inadequate relationships with fathers or mothers, or bad experiences with friends or others, to make any judgments.
(It’s unwise to make assumptions. Almost every time I think I have something nailed down, I find another way there can be an exception!)
Not all that long ago, I know many fathers didn’t see it as being important to interact with their children. That was their wife’s job, and their job was done if they provided an income for the family.
Among younger people, there’s often more flexibility in family roles now. I really appreciate seeing that, when I do.
Part of my thinking, both about gays and about heterosexuals, is that we all seem to subconsciously look for partners who might help complement us in our areas of weakness or fill the needs left in us from things that happened in our lives. If we were missing something in our upbringing, we tend to look for someone who can help us work through our “stuff” that still needs to be worked through.
If, for instance, we were missing a daddy’s love, we might be looking for someone who looks like he could fill that spot or maybe has some of the characteristics of the parent we still have issues with.
How is that something we should judge each other for?
Just My Perspective…
As His created ones, God knows how He made us to function best. If we operate these well-equipped “human machines” He made contrary to how He made them to function, some things will probably go wrong. (…And others will either benefit or suffer from whatever we do around them as a result, since we are made to function in relationship).
A good many of us might not know the right way to maintain our created functions without help of some kind.
Though much has changed, that was certainly true of me.
Suppose there is a manufacturing company that makes toasters. Their conveyer belts move fast-as-a-bullet, so that employees must work quickly to do their jobs right.
Suppose also that an employee at this company sneezed as a toaster came through. Maybe as a result of the sneeze, he neglected to put in a crucial part–say, one spring on the left side of the toaster, such that the toast wouldn’t come up correctly on that side.
A piece that is missing or put in wrong can cause things to function in a way that is not normal for that appliance. The poor toaster with a missing spring might be flinging toast into the cabinets or not ejecting toast at all, without help and “healing”/fixing.
I have learned a lot about myself in the last ten or twenty years. I have come up with theories about possible reasons for things I see in others by observing my own reactions to situations that come up, sometimes.
In one situation, it seemed like I was being offered an opportunity to have a “relationship” with another woman. It surprised me that my first reaction was a sense of relief.
I knew that there was a missing part of my own life for which there seemed to be no remedy. I also usually get along really well with most women, and I do tend to have a gift for saying and doing all the wrong things around guys who might have an interest in me and in whom I also would have an interest…
If I had chosen to take part in this relationship, it would have probably been because an enduring relationship with her actually seemed possible, as opposed to everything else I had tried that never worked out with a man. (Unless he was someone I was not interested in–then it often didn’t seem to be a problem relating to them at all.)
After a little bit of probing, it seemed to me like something similar might have also existed for this woman I just mentioned. In her profession, she rarely met any eligible single men, and it looked to me like she desperately wanted children of her own. She needed to be a mother, and it was painful to see that she couldn’t be one, simply because there were few eligible single men she could meet.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but for at least some of us, maybe the reason some of us do things others don’t think are right (like having a lesbian relationship) is that there just needs to be better ways of finding eligible mates in our country, and some of us end up compromising so we can at least have someone.
This was ten or fifteen years ago, perhaps before online dating sites really started to take off. I know there are lots of online dating sites now, but not everyone benefits from them, I think, especially if they don’t have a computer or don’t have a lot of extra money lying around.
I know there are some free ones too… I don’t even bother with them, myself, because it seems like every guy’s preference is for a model-type woman, which I am not. And I believe with the promise God gave me, I’m to be looking for a certain kind of person. I haven’t met him yet.
But this discourse should answer just about any question you’d ever ask me about how I relate to the word “gay” or to people I know who are…or about how I feel about being single.
I at least hope it helped you understand my concept of why government is “gay”.
