Building Bridges & Burning Ships: Part 7
“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” - Mark 10:6 - 9 NIV
Since we’ve been on the topic of gender for the last few weeks, I thought it would be great to shift gears to everyone’s favorite topic - sexuality.
In the 21st century, sexuality is our new identity. Why?
Because we’ve allowed society to say so.
It amazes me how something so beautiful and created to help us understand the full intimacy of Christ has become so convoluted. It absolutely breaks my heart. If I have a conversation with one young adult and teenager every day for the rest of my life about sexuality, I am not quite sure it would fully help recoup the current state we are in.
What happened?
It started when we shifted our movements and identities to boxes instead of in Christ. In social work, one of the things I did was create boxes for people to check. Over time those boxes grew. They asked what was your gender, your race, your age, and your family background. Today there are many categories for gender and new ways to establish family outside of the order of Christ. However, we don’t hone in on the idea that everyone is unique and created by an outside-of-the-box Creator.
I once saw a testimony of a Christian woman who said she was gay. Every minute of that testimony my heart broke for her because she did not understand that God had set her free and redeemed her. She worked for a non - profit and said that because she felt she was homosexual God had given her a ministry to serve in for the rest of her life. She knew she would never have a family because of this sin in her life. This woman stated that means she could devote every part of her lifetime to the ministry.
On the flip side of this testimony, I recently saw a different Christian who believed he was gay most of his life. The testimony had previously been of how he was addicted to pornography and God set him free of that addiction. This was the addiction to him believing he was gay. Recently, he changed his testimony to be how he met a girl that he found attractive and now he knew he wasn’t gay. His testimony became that a girl redeemed his belief that he was gay.
Do you see a pattern here? This has become prevalent in society. Rather than surrendering our whole selves to Christ, especially our sexuality, we grasp for control. Freedom comes from surrender to Christ’s Lordship and never from ourselves. Devoting oneself to ministry is a beautiful idea, but not if it comes from trying to earn God’s grace. He freely allows us to daily surrender all sinful desires - whether homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual.
Finding yourself attracted to a female does not become the basis for your healing.
Only Christ heals.
Living in a lifestyle of having sex outside of marriage does not redeem the past if you put a ring on the whole situation. Only Christ redeems.
We have to become a generation that surrenders our sexuality to him.
One that serves His Kingdom from a place that says I am His daughters. There is no label on my sexuality because I do not label myself under sin.
I am not enslaved to a ministry because my surrender to Christ was enough for my redemption. I no longer look to my bodily or temporary feelings to determine my marriage, but to the King who will show me who I can impact the most people with. We have to shift our viewpoint. Instead of trying to “fix” people’s sexual issues - let’s point them to the Gospel and it’s foundations. Teach them to love others and seek Christ’s will in all areas of their lives.
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added to you…” - Matt. 6:33 NKJV
I want to close with a story again. One of my favorites. Once upon a time there was a woman named Elisabeth Elliot. She loved God more than anything. Day and night she would wrestle with God about a desire for marriage and a desire to do His will. She never wanted her relationship to get in the way of her calling. One day she met a man - Jim Elliot. This man wrestled with the calling on his life as well. They were friends for seven years - crossing countries and each other’s paths at various times. Until the moment Elisabeth was stationed on a mission field literally at the same place Jim was. That was when they felt it was God’s will for them to be together.
This story has always inspired me with these two amazing individuals hearts for Christ’s kingdom. I’m not sure Christ calls us to pray for seven years, but this is a great standard for marriage.
Pray for your future spouse. Pray for anyone you are dating. Seek God’s will and let Him guide you. Most importantly, keep your sexuality out of the main point of conversation for your decision to marry.
Having sex is beautiful and God ordained.
However, marriage is not the place to fix your sexual issues. It is the place to build the Kingdom, build a family, create life, create intimacy, enjoy one another’s company, and obviously have sex. Keep the priorities straight and surrender your sexuality to Christ - whatever you may believe it to be.
Stay tuned for more controversial topics next week with the topic of race in my “Building Bridges & Burning Ships” series. Remember: To build a bridge is to find commonality and to burn a ship is to rid yourself of a previous thought that needed redemption. Today, we were all reminded to burn the ship of fixing our sexuality ourselves and to build a bridge that all sexual sins are equal.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alycia Marie is a free-spirited wanderer learning to find roots. She currently resides in Milwaukee and serves the community of southeastern Wisconsin. You can typically find her outdoors, as long as it’s warm, hanging out with family/close friends and meeting soon-to-not-be strangers. In her spare time, she writes, drinks chai tea, and builds non-profits, homes, families, and people. Some people like to call it missions. She prefers well-digging.