On your “answering email” web page “God Made Me Gay” I read this question:
“Thanks for your answer! I have prayed to the Lord to make me straight! Why does he not answer?”
Your answer was long, but this was the core of it:
“Well, God would say to him, ‘Dear one, that’s what I intended you to be all along, and I still do. But we’re going to have to undo the damage that sin has caused in your life. There are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating—we need to refashion your life into the pattern of My original intent.”
The problem that I see with this is scriptural. Let’s take a look at what Jesus said:
“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” John 14:13-14
I am sure that the person who asked you the question has made a prayer like this one:
“God, please make me heterosexual. I ask this in Jesus’s name so that my life may bring glory to you.”
I think this sounds like a fair thing to ask of God, don’t you? And, according to Jesus’s words, he should do it, as he said that we WILL DO ANYTHING that one asks in his name. As it happens for many gay Christians who hurt and struggle, God does not answer this prayer.
Your excuse for God’s failure is that “[t]here are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating” which, apparently, defy God’s omnipotent power and boundless love and mercy.
My question for you is, which chapter and verse in the Bible state that God will not give someone heterosexuality if they ask for it in Jesus’s name because there are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating?
Great question.
“God, please make me heterosexual. I ask this in Jesus’s name so that my life may bring glory to you.”
I think you left out an important word. Often, what people really mean when they pray this is, ‘”God, please make me heterosexual NOW.”
I think this sounds like a fair thing to ask of God, don’t you? And, according to Jesus’s words, he should do it, as he said that we WILL DO ANYTHING that one asks in his name. As it happens for many gay Christians who hurt and struggle, God does not answer this prayer.
Jesus didn’t say anything about His timetable, though. He DOES answer this prayer, and has for many people, but He doesn’t answer it overnight.
I think the “Please, please let me wake up straight” prayer (which I know has been prayed by so very many) is in the same category as prayers like, “Oh God, I am so afraid of this upcoming surgery/French test/job review. Please let me wake up and it will all be over and behind me.” Or, “Dear God, I hate being 10 and ugly. Please make me be 25 and all grown up and beautiful and happy.” There’s nothing wrong with the request, and God invites us to come to Him with every desire of our hearts, but He doesn’t promise to give us what we ask for within minutes or hours of the prayer.
Your excuse for God’s failure is that “[t]here are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating” which, apparently, defy God’s omnipotent power and boundless love and mercy.
I would suggest God is not failing. I would suggest that the issue is unrealistic expectations–that God should act like Tinkerbell and sprinkle magic pixie dust and make everything OK. But gender identity, sexual orientation, and a weakness for emotionally dependent relationships are complex issues that can’t be “fixed” overnight.
In fact, one of my dearest friends, a former gay activist, had a most unexpected experience with God. Within moments of trusting Christ, she heard the voice of God thunder in her spirit: “YOU ARE NOT GAY!” She did discover that she wasn’t drawn to women as sex objects like she had been before, but within a couple of months of her conversion she found herself in a short-lived lesbian relationship. She was now a Christian, she knew God had said she wasn’t gay, but she didn’t have anything to work with except her old ways of relating to people and her old ways of making life work on her own. She wasn’t attracted to her new girlfriend the way she would have been before, but she was so desperate for connection and to feel loved that she entered into the only kind of relationship she knew how to have: one that was mutually exploitative.
It’s been several years since that experience, and she has since learned how to have friendships with women in her new church that are about giving, not getting, that are holy and glorifying to God, but it’s been hard work to get to the place she’s at, and she’s still having to work through all the garbage from her life that she brought into the Kingdom with her. She’s known since the time she became a Christian that she wasn’t gay, because God told her she wasn’t gay, but she also didn’t know how NOT to be gay, and learning takes time.
Were God to do a miracle that made a struggler into a non-struggler, he or she wouldn’t know who they were or how they got there. It would be like waking up with amnesia and discovering one was married to a stranger, employed in a job they didn’t have the skills for, and living in a city they’d never been in before.
My friend complained one day to me that she wasn’t attracted to women anymore, but she sure wasn’t attracted to men and she SURE didn’t know how to relate to either women OR men now because she’d had this major emotional earthquake that really complicated things. (Interestingly, as she developed her relationship with Christ and He started doing some hard work in her soul, she started reporting an attraction to certain kinds of men. It’s been like doing junior high as a 35-year-old.)
My question for you is, which chapter and verse in the Bible state that God will not give someone heterosexuality if they ask for it in Jesus’s name because there are matters of generational sin, unhealthy patterns of family relating?
Two responses: first, if you literally mean this, then I’m afraid you don’t understand how to read the Bible. We look at principles in the Bible, in the context of everything else that it says, to figure out what God’ s intention is. Otherwise, you end up with questions like, “Which chapter and verse tell us not to have abortions?” and “Which chapter and verse prohibit child abuse?” There are no such chapters and verses, but we can still discern what God wants us to know.
Secondly, when someone asks for heterosexuality, God’s response would be, “I already made you heterosexual. ‘In the beginning, God created them male and female.’ The problem is that you believe lies about yourself. You have an incorrect understanding of your identity: you are not homosexual, you are My child who struggles with same-sex feelings and the legacy of sinful behavior. It takes time to unravel those lies and misunderstandings and the destruction of sin so that you OWN the truth about yourself. It takes time to develop new habits to replace the sinful old ones. Walk with Me, surrender to Me, and let Me tell you who you really are.”
I hope this helps.
Sue Bohlin
© 2005 Probe Ministries.
Sue Bohlin
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker/writer and webmistress for Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 40 years. She is a speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian Women's Connections), and serves on the board of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women's Leadership Team and is a regular contributor to Bible.org's Engage Blog. In addition to being a professional calligrapher, she is the wife of Probe's Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their two grown sons. Her personal website is suebohlin.com.
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