Exploring the Well

Wandering the savage garden...

The Anchor of the Past

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It’s one of those days where I’m recognizing the value of writing as a habit, because I really, really don’t want to write, at all. It’s been a big day – great highs, and incredible lows. I’m still trying to process it all, and the thing that’s keeping me grounded is God.

I’m having to remind myself of the patterns we should follow through the day. They easily become rote and dry religion, but their true value is when they keep us afloat even when everything’s messed up around us.

Right now, everything’s messed up. Like I said, it’s been a triumphant day – and a difficult one, even in the height of victory.

It’s my own fault, too. The pain was lurking in the heart of success, and it was my own action that put it there; it was a random comment that set it loose. To the best I can tell, it wasn’t intentional, but it’s been severe, opening a wound that I thought had healed and scarred over.

So now I’m retreating, reminding myself that this is a storm that can and will pass, God willing, and that the routines I might otherwise despise for being empty ritual are also things that give us momentum and context.

I ask for forgiveness every day, which can easily become arrogance and ignorance… and when I need it, the beauty of the request shines through, breathing life into the dry bones.

Including my own dry bones. I don’t know how I’ll make it through this moment, but like I have done before, I will find a way, with God’s help and guidance, to healing. I know it won’t be easy; it’s redemption I seek, not simple forgiveness, and not an excuse.

That’s not to say that I don’t need to pray further about it. I try to be accountable in everything I do, because I don’t want an accusation to have legs; I want it to be obvious that the Accuser lies. And I resent the accusations, when the truth is told; “I am wronged,” I say to myself.

And I guess to some degree, I am wronged. The accusation is, in this case, not accurate. But that doesn’t mean that other accusations were also inaccurate – that’s why I know this is simply the long-buried fruit of sin from long ago. This is a burden I should bear, not one I should avoid, regardless of whether I wanted to avoid it or not.

In the end, it’ll be okay; I’ll endure, somehow, and with God’s help everything will be okay, and stronger than it was. Here’s hoping.

I realize that I haven’t actually written five hundred words, even though this is today’s “five hundred word” entry – I’m trying, but I’m really struggling right now.

A personal position statement on homosexuality that matters

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There’s a lot of discussion going on that talks about Christianity and homosexuality, with a lot of emotion. One thing that’s rarely stated, as far as I can tell, is the position of the Christian and homosexuality.

I’ve already discussed the biblical stance regarding homosexuality (very much against, incontrovertibly).

Many Christians – not all, but many – use that to establish a pecking order among people with respect to God, with homosexuals at the bottom. They seem to think homosexuals are redeemable through the mercy of Christ, but only if they repent and abandon their sin.

In a way, they’re right – they’re redeemable through the mercy of Christ. But the abandoning of sin, well… you know, I repent of sin daily, to be sure, but I don’t think there’s ever been a follower of Christ who’s actually managed to abandon all sin.

That’s a very broad brush to use – and for God, sin places everyone at the bottom of the pecking order. Those who are redeemed are at the top.

It’s a two-position ladder, not a ladder with a rung at the top for good Christians, then one rung down go the Christians who smoke, then another rung down for the adulterous Christians, then a few rungs down you find the sinners, with another four rungs down you find them hommasexshuls.

Other Christians seem to think that redemption is everything, that everything ends there – and further sin is okay. (Or, at least, maybe some sin. “But that other woman’s my soul mate, not my wife!,” or “I, Adam, take thee, Steve…”)

Um, no.

This is part of why “Once Saved, Always Saved” is valid. If sin separated us from God, the saved would be cut off almost immediately, every time.

God reforms the saved. We’re remade in Christ, refined and purified in His love and power. We’re still sinners even as we’re redeemed, but through the guidance of the Holy Spirit we sin less as we grow in Christ.

What you see here is a battle between mercy and justice. Tim Keller put it very well, in “The Meaning of Marriage,” and I can’t find the actual quote, so I’ll paraphrase:

Truth without grace is legalism, and grace without truth is sentiment.

Grace says “Oh, so they sin, it’s okay!” Truth says “Sin is never okay!” … and God represents both.

It’s not “okay” to sin, but we’re redeemed through faith in Christ.

The Actual Position Statement

So here’s what I think my view of the homosexual is:

I don’t care. I don’t care who someone sleeps with, or when they sleep with them. It’s not my business. It’s God’s. Someone who sins (via homosexuality, or adultery, or theft, or what-have-you) merely sins – sometimes grievously, sometimes not so much, but in the end it’s all sin, and God can redeem anyone from anywhere.

What the redeemed do is between them and God; the Holy Spirit instructs and remonstrates.

All I can do – and all I’m called to do – is point to Christ.

Do I tell a sinner what their sin is, if prompted to do so? (“Is homosexuality wrong?”) … yes. By pointing to Christ.

Not by using my relationship or position. After all, I sin too! I required salvation just as much as any other sinner. I was in the position of the sinner before redemption; I’m in the position of the sinning Christian after redemption.

It cannot be me who judges them, because of my own sin. They would be able to accuse me, and we’d be penalized together.

But if I witness to them the love of Christ, in His strength He will convict them and lift them. It’s not me, or my responsibility; my responsibility ends when I point to Christ.

So I have no objection to the homosexual as a person – none. I have homosexual friends. They know what I believe, and why I believe it, and they know I consider them my friends, and that I always will. And yes, they know what I think about the practice of homosexuality.

And they don’t expect me to attempt to beat them down with the Bible. They see themselves protected by Christ, even as they’re not Christians – and that’s one very small view of the love of Christ.