Worksheet for Day Twenty Eight

For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers (ROM 1:9).

Bible Passages for Daily Spiritual Reflection

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REFLECTION
Facing and Freeing

The formation of homosexuality leaves you as a person with a lot of "baggage" from your past. It’s important to take a look at that "baggage" and see how much of it you can dump.

It is not easy to move into the goal of Adult, Christian, Sexually Mature, Manhood unless you are somehow able to release yourself from your past. So, I’d like you to spend a little time on Facing and Freeing yourself from your past.
Nothing But The Truth

So alone,

And so untouched,

Devoid of real intimacy.

So cut off and so unfree,

So guarded and walled off from me;

Void, empty-sad in self-pity.

A want to have experience,

To touch something that is real,

To know what is love,

To open the doors very wide

And to come out

And reel about;

And someone to come in.

And touch me within.

Stop pretending, defending inside.

Husk the shell, End the spell,

Chuck the mask, taste and smell,

Play and fight,

Embrace every minute,

Discover love, enter in it.

Waste neither the day nor the night.

Tell all the truth

The shame and the sham

The knife cutting guilt, even the sin.

Confess it completely

Reveal it, then meekly

Remember that you are forgiven.

WEC 95

It’s hard enough to get to know who you really are and to face this reality in yourself! It just about takes a whole lifetime. It’s even more difficult to come to live acceptably and peaceably with the person you really are as one who lives with the reality of homosexuality but who decides not to live in the deception of a gay life-choice. It takes great courage and wisdom, faith and grace to live with the apparent contradiction of homosexuality and Christian conviction. Your challenge is to live with this apparent contradiction more effectively, courageously, realistically and harmoniously. For that is the desire of God.

It is my belief, based on the numerous men with whom I’ve worked over many years, that such an integrated life is possible. Many have come to live a meaningful and rewarding life as either celibate or married Christians and have resolved this apparent conflict. It is also my conviction that such a life comes about when a person forms a new vision of his life, a life-vision which is biblical, realistic, personally meaningful and authentic. That vision is the Father-son relationship.

But a person can be locked to their past. The Father-son relationship is blocked by this past. It needs to be faced and freed. It takes grace and skill to face life realistically. There is no authentic and genuine living until you both know and accept yourself as the real person you are. There is no real life without FACING the reality of your feelings, thoughts, behavior and inclinations as they are experienced.

Realistically facing one’s self, the world and God is the task of every authentic life. With pro-gay advocates we can agree on this point. It is also the will of Our Father God to face yourself but choose to be obedient to Him. He is primarily interested in the real you; the authentic you. In the Bible this authentic facing of the "real self "is called the heart (or inner man) as when His Word says that "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart". The word "heart" appears some 600 times in the Bible. Jesus said, "

"What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.'

For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. S

All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.'"

God is most interested in the inner man, the heart, and His growing conformity to His Son’s image. Furthermore God already knows you through and through. He knows all about you and all of you. He is always looking at us Face-to-face even if we are not. We only move toward wholeness and holiness as we come to know ourselves and accept ourselves as He does. He has said;
"Matthew 5:48 "Be therefore complete, even as your Father which is in heaven is complete", and in 1 Corinthians 13:12 "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am fully known". In 2 Cor 3:18, it says, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." And Gen 32:30 recalls the encounter which Jacob has with the living Lord, " So Jacob called the place Peniel, meaning, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." In Psalm 139 (1-16) we read,

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, ^[¹^] you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"

even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

You cannot live authentically and peaceably without FACING yourself, others, your work, your world and your God in faith, in spirit and in truth. You cannot live a lie; you cannot live in deception, in hiding and secretiveness from yourself, from others or from God.

At the same time, you cannot live authentically and fulfilled unless you face yourself, the world and God as He has designed you; and by the eternal laws of creation which He has established. Truth and authentic humanity is God’s creation. He has established the laws and standards for our lives.

Living realistically and as an authentic Christian man who lives with homosexuality. Facing yourself, your world and God is the only foundation for a meaningful and peaceful life as a Christian who lives with homosexuality, for only knowing and living with the truth sets you free. It is the antidote to denial and self-deception.

ACTION
Reflecting on the above poem and thoughts of Facing yourself, what is your reaction and feeling?