Your Father Knows that you have only one life to live, and that is the life as it is for you right now with all its unique gifts, disabilities, weaknesses, sensitivities and circumstances which make it uniquely your life. For you this includes living with homosexuality. For another it is living with some other burden or difficulty. This is both a sobering and sad recognition for you. You have one life to live and you are now living it. You say, "O.K, so what’s new about that? What’s so important about that?"

Your Father Knows that no one else has the exact same set of characteristics, as does your life. Your life is a one-of-a-kind life. Your life is unique! For your Father, your life is special! Others are smarter, more gifted, less talented, less good looking, more educated, less emotional, completely heterosexual, etc. What you have is who you are. Their life is no better or worse than yours. On the surface it may seem better or worse. But you will never know if it is or is not since you cannot experience another person’s life as they uniquely do. Only God knows and experiences each person’s life as they uniquely do for only He is the author and redeemer of all lives. And only God looks upon the inner man’s heart. So, there is no use or need to compare yourself with others. You are and have what you are and have.

Your Father Knows that you are responsible and accountable for what makes up the realities of your real experienced life of assets and liabilities and circumstances. You are only responsible for yourself, as you are constituted; with what was given and with what has developed in your life. Accountable for what you did and didn’t do. You are not responsible for what others think or believe. You must take responsibility for your life as it is.

Your Father Knows that your wholeness and holiness is all tied up with how you live out your one-of-a-kind life with all its weaknesses and strengths, gifts and liabilities. Often, we look to other’s lives for examples. But there is no use trying to copy the lives of those called "saints" or comparing yourself with a Paul or Mary or Joseph or Mother Theresa; Luther, Wesley, Billy Graham, or Augustine. You may learn valuable things of great importance from their writings or example, but you cannot live their lives because they had their own unique liabilities, doubts, weaknesses and strengths, which you do not have. You will never know their inner hearts, secrets, trials and personalities. They are holy only because of the responsibility they took for living out in Christ their own one-of-a-kind life. And besides, each of us who is born-again into the life of God by faith in Jesus Christ is already a saint; one set apart to be holy as God is holy.

Your Father Knows that He has graced and blessed your life in many overt and hidden ways. No, God has not made you homosexually inclined. That comes out of your unique constitutional and developmental experiences. But God is fully knowledgeable about your one-of-a-kind existence with its own weaknesses and strengths, gifts and liabilities. That’s the only person He is looking at. And He has already blessed you and intends to bless the unique person you are with all these very positive or negative things. He has already given you the graces and assistance and will continue to do so, in order for you to live out your unique life.

Your Father Knows that all about your homosexuality just as He knows about the blindness, or alcoholism or personality disorder of His other children. Your homosexuality in itself makes no difference to Him, except as to what you do with it as a part of your one-of-a-kind life in accordance with His Word and Will. He is not repulsed by you or hates you. Yes, you read in

Le 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. And in Le 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. There is no doubt that God looks upon homosexual activity between same-gender people as a serious violation and distortion of his plan for sexuality. If you commit such a sin, you step out of your Father-son relationship and place yourself under God’s judgement. But He is always ready to show you mercy and forgiveness and ask you to step back into your sonship with Him.

Your Father Knows that even more mysteriously and providentially, your homosexuality is both your unique cross and gift. Both cross and yes, gift. It is "the" signature cross and gift of your life. It is a GIFT! Is living with homosexuality making you better or bitter?

Your Father Knows that human nature, being what it is, doesn’t ever arrive at a place of completion. A human life is meant to grow and go forward but it doesn’t do so automatically and without hesitation, blockages and interruptions. There is always regression, progress and regression. There are three steps forward and two steps backward. So every life is continuously in need of renewal and revival. You will not arrive at a permanent balance between your Christian life and homosexuality. They will always be in a dynamic seesaw movement.

Your Father Knows that the underlying needs, which give rise to homosexual behavior, are good and normal and you should try to get these needs met. Your homo-emotional needs are not the same thing as your homoerotic behavior. This is why earlier I spoke of the importance of not treating the word "homosexuality" an undifferentiated mass.

Your Father Knows that for a Biblically Faithful Christian, making a lifestyle choice in obedience to Him is more important that the temptations and failings about homosexuality. Placing your life in your Father’s hands is what pleases God and not having a perfect record of freedom from failure in your struggle with homosexuality. Choosing a lifestyle of homosexuality will separate you from God permanently, it displeases God and severs your relationship. The Direction is what’s important, not the Perfection!

This is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. "Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts, or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves—none of these will possess God's Kingdom.
Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Your Father Knows that He is working in your life to bring you to conformity to the image of His Son Jesus Christ. He has begun a good work in your life and He desires to complete it. "And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again." Overcomers know that the Father has this ultimate plan for their lives. It is to be like the perfect Son Jesus. They know He is working in them, on them, around the, for them and through them. They know that God does not begin a good work and abandon it. Only you can abandon the work.

Your Father Knows that all of your life is held together and united in one overarching reality. It is Romans 8:28. "We know that all things work together for good for the one who loves God and is called according to His purposes". There is a mountain; a cavern; an ocean of love and mercy which the Father wants you to receive in these precious words. They have been so precious, so cherished, so nurturing to my own life. These are the words the Father gave me as my life’s signature and promise. They say everything about the Father-son relationship. Would you spend some time with them now.

Your Father Knows that living with homosexuality successfully or the resolution of homosexuality, is a dynamic and progressive process. By dynamic I mean that the Father knows that there are times of up and down, success and failure, forward and backward movement. He does not get tired of you or disgusted with you because of this. He knows this is the reality of human nature that is weak and contaminated by sin. But He also knows that men who diligently work at resolution make a steady progress which makes the BIG "H" of homosexuality begin to fade into the background of their lives as a small "h". There is a functional resolution of homosexuality.

Your Father Knows that your issue of homosexuality is one piece of your personality system. It does not stand by itself. It will not be resolved by your concentration on it alone. Sometimes it is best resolved by ignoring it altogether and concentrating on the other issues that keep homosexuality alive. For instance, you may be a person who has a number of outstanding fears and anxieties. Or you may be obsessive and compulsive. You may have been unsuccessful at finding a satisfying career. You may have unresolved anger and resentment toward your father or mother.

Homosexuality is a thread woven into the fabric of your whole personality. You can’t just pull it out. You had better not try to pull it out for in doing so your whole personality may collapse. Instead you may need to work with other contributing threads. Your Father knows this about you!

Fourteen: Four Areas of Satisfaction

Your Father Knows that most people, and you are included, experience satisfaction and fulfillment in life from four areas. They find fulfillment from a

1. A real, personal, alive relationship with the Lord in which He is your experienced Friend (Jesus), Fellowship-giver (Spirit), and Father (God).
2. A real and alive relationship to certain people; a wife, a close male friend, with family and with some other male and female companions.
3. A real alive relationship to some meaningful and rewarding work, avocation and or ministry.
4. A real, loving, accepting, caring relationship to yourself –physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, self-image, etc (which is more likely to develop if the other three are).

Your Father Knows that you must run fast toward that which you fear. You must push the line of most resistance. You need to do the things that are most pro-active; things which force you to cut into your own resistance to change and growth. You have become comfortable in your way of living, You resist challenges which would help you breakout of the lifestyle you have formed for yourself. These things are the pro-active; the positive, forceful, challenging things to do. Re-active are the things that come easily.

Wrestle: Allow the Father to show you right now some of the breakthrough areas and pro-active things you need to do which would compel change in your life. Augustine says: "Without God, man cannot; without man God will not." And Phil 2:l3 says, "For it is God who worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure."

Philippians 3:7-9, 12-15: "I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.