Gods Children / Finding Identity

Well, this is my toughest blog to date. Since this process is about continuing a thread of writing and not editing it, I sit here a bit confused as to how to be totally honest and not make everyone a bit upset with me.

The photo of Loren here on the left is an artist and photographer and need I say fitness freak. I just watched a two hour special that had him in it. So what, you say. Why have a nude photo of a man on your blog? Nice tattoos and low body fat? Well Loren was women and went through transgender surgery and well over a decade of hormone treatments to become as he would say "on the outside, who I always was on the inside". Transgender is not gay,lesbian he would say. Well I sat for two hours watching this show and finding myself in tears over these stories.
So how does this fit into our neat little box we call Evangelical Christianity.

When I began in Ministry in the early 70's, I met a man at a church who was really hurting. I took him to coffee. As time went by and he trusted me enough to share his story with me, I found out Ken was a professional clown around the world. A professional juggler as well. For a few years I walked a very sad journey with my friend as he attempted to find a way to find peace and happiness in a gay lifestyle that had pretty much killed him. Multiple suicide attempts, piano wire attempts at castration from the shame of his actions mixed with drugs and alcohol to numb his pain. I never doubted his love of Christ. His desire to be more like Jesus each day and to walk in a lifestyle "choice" that "would" bring him a life of happiness he was wanting. His prayers, in humility, were at times more honest and deeper than many of my contemporaries and yes, even me. Like any addict, he just couldn't find a way to stay off and away from his version of "crack cocaine" - men. Delivered of dozens of demons, multiple times over the years he was tormented in and out. I never really new why or where the root was. I never got the answer as his friend. I do know that I loved him, stood by him, and for those short few years in his life he knew another Christian who wanted to be like Jesus accepted him for who he wanted to be.
Well, there's part of the rub. He had accepted the fact that the Word, our guide and guidepost, had spelled out things, that although he didn't understand them in the flesh, he knew them to be right in the spirit. And so, like you and I, when we sin, and we're aware of it, we ask for forgiveness and help in changing the things that bring us to those bad choices. Some are surface, some are deep to our very cores...
Those gay in my life over the years who love Jesus and mostly live in pain and suffering, I have always had a burden for. (not feeling sorry for, but compassion for their lives). I always say. Hey, I'm heterosexual, I love girls, I love my wife. My father God created me with a passion for passion. Thank You God!!!! However that doesn't mean that once I decide to follow Christ that I get to sleep with whomever I want to because I feel it, or because I was created with those feelings... King David and King Solomon pretty much lived that lifestyle and you can read their life stories and say "how'd that work in the long run for you guys"..

For me, (my opinion) If you are gay/lesbian in your feelings, and, you decide you want to find peace and happiness in a Christian life of following Jesus, then, like the rest of us, we have to look to the Word and see what it says in it's entirety about our lifestyles and what we can and cant or should or shouldn't do. If you are in a lifestyle of multiple partners and gay or straight, and you want to find peace in Faith in Christ, then you have to knock it off. Yes I'll admit that I as straight, get to find one person (hopefully) that I can live with and have great sexual passion with. And on the other hand, a gay person will not be able to do that according to the Word. But I didn't make the hands or the rules. And if we want all that God has to offer, we have to admit sin (everywhere) and start make the changes to stop it - not - justify it.

This blog was not to really discuss Gay/Lesbian issues but more the transgender one.
So anyway, if I'm offending anyone, it's not my intention and after all it's just my opinion and I have to live with the consequences of it all. So in reality at this point in my life, my position is that if you tell me you are gay and it's ok for you, and you are happy living that lifestyle then I'm just your friend. But if you tell me you are a Christian and live for Christ, or desire to, then I have to say, I still love you " like my friend Ken", but I have to be honest about your faith and how it lines up with the Word. I'd expect the same from them if I were living a bad choice and making changes but justifying it.
We'll really... I think we all fall short, but, that doesn't excuse our sin for a moment.
Back on transgender.

If truly God creates us in our mothers womb, then He must see what the combination of egg/sperm and those two peoples genetics are going to bring to the mix in a baby. All the basic height, weight, hair, looks, skin, eye color. And then yes, genetic defects and diseases and weakness for diseases. After all if He gives us choice, and we get together and hook up, then the laws of nature do come into affect. Ahhh the laws of nature. Boy, I'll really want to listen to those being explained someday when I get to sit in on that class in eternity. (That's assuming I'll have any metal capability to understand it. lol) All the unexplained human tragedy we want God to eliminate and explain...

Then there's gender..
So how does it all work for them. The transgendered. Are they not the same children God put life into? Does he not love Loren in the picture above as much as me. Will God as a father not be calling the Lorens and Craigs back into His presence every day till we die? Does not a Fathers or a Mothers love surpass the logical? The human? The judgment we all want on each other when we don't live up to our personal Life Groups standards?

So I sit by my fire tonight with my dog by my side thinking about How to love the world more as Jesus would. His Church, His bride. How do we help facilitate this. How to love those I don't understand in a way that they might see that God lives in me through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That God children, who He's calling day and night to come back to Him, might experience true love, Agape love, coming thru our flesh & bones to those who are used to the jeer, the look, the comment, the sign, the whisper of anything but God, Grace, Mercy and redemption.

To the Lorens of the world, I'm sorry I've done such a bad job of meeting you at the well, or the pool, or on the road, up in a tree or up a creek...
I need to drop the rock and begin standing on it more i guess.

And to all those who've ended up in dark places, selling themselves or giving themselves away in strip clubs, prostitution and dark alleys, there is hope. There is a better way for all of us to move from darkness to the light each day.
It begins with, "I need you Jesus", it moves to, "I want to live for you Father" and ends with " I'm Sorry Dad - Thank You for Mercy and Grace. I want Your way not mine".

In that choice, God promises us all in His Word, pain, struggle and suffering filled with a peace and joy in the midst of it all, that comes only from walking the hills and valleys With Him..