My Life with Jesus as a Gay Christian

When I was a young boy I used to tease my brother and one day when I was trying to dominate him, I declared “I am God”. My mother heard this and said, “Don’t say that!” With those words I realized that God was real and I immediately felt His presence. From then on, I was aware of Him, but didn’t know who He was.

Later on when I was a teenager my family began to attend a local church. I tried to absorb everything that my then church taught me about God. They portrayed Him as a king on a throne who didn’t say much, but that had to be respected and obeyed.

I was taught that God frowned on a lot of things I thought and did and I was guilty of sin. I had to figure out how to appease Him. He was like a principal that required me to be a good student, but who I would never see, get to know or understand. I did not really understand what He wanted from me.

Then some friends from another church came and spoke of Jesus and talked about how Jesus loved us and would give us love and joy with His Holy Spirit. And they spoke of His unconditional love for us.

At one point, I made the decision to surrender to Jesus and said He could do with me as He wished. Of course when that happened my life changed. But then I realized I was gay and I even shouted at God, “NO NOT THAT!” and with that came the struggle of understanding if God accepted me or if I was banished to hell, like my evangelical church had declared.

I prayed a very long time for Him to make me straight, but nothing happened. I only got more stressed and conflicted. Eventually I had to give up when I realized that praying to God to change me yielded no results. So I had to pursue what being gay meant. Of course in my mind this also meant that I had to leave God behind as the church stated I was an abomination.

I was mad at God. How could He create me this way and then condemn me for it?

The church and many Christians said that if I had prayed and repented, God would change me, but when I prayed to Him about this I heard no response from Him. He was silent and I did not change. I had no choice but to accept my sexuality.

As a young gay man, I saw that like any person, whether straight or gay, I could easily take myself down the wrong path and seriously mess up my life. But after the silence and no answers to my prayers, I felt that God had abandoned me and I had to accept that this would be my life.

So I explored what being gay meant. Of course that included falling in love, having my heart broken and dealing with the pain of that. Over time, I made gay friends and thought I had found my community, but then those friends wandered off and I was again alone trying to make sense of it.

One evening, I decided that I would love God even if He rejected me. Even if He didn’t want me, I would still love Him. I went to a gay Christian group meeting at the local GLBT community center and met up with other folks who also struggled trying to reconcile their faith and sexuality. Fellowship with other gay Christians helped me tremendously as we talked about our struggles and prayed together.

As time went on, I saw how God did not abandon me, but blessed me as I got closer to Him. I compared the words of Jesus and the words of those in the church who attempted to keep me in my place and realized that they were not even remotely like Jesus. I began to see that being gay had actually been God’s plan for me, to set me off on a journey to know Him more deeply and understand His great plan for me and mankind. In this community of gay Christians I also met my now life partner and we have been together for 28 years and we each serve God in our own way.

After all my years of struggle and prayer, I realized that God never changed me because there was nothing wrong with me.

So many Christians declare that God doesn't listen to gay people, but I have found that He does indeed listen, regularly answers my prayers, protects me from harm, teaches me spiritual truths and wisdom and sends me blessings.

As a gay Christian, I am in continuous conversation with Jesus and He shows me how this earthly life is unfair, unjust, prejudiced and unloving. I have learned that many church denominations are prone to prejudice, bias and hypocrisy and are easily swayed by politics and group think.

I came to understand that God was not a cold, demanding, immovable king on a throne, but a loving creator who knew the very core of my being and I was exactly who He created me to be. Though I made many missteps and wrong decisions, He loves me and is full of forgiveness and compassion. This was proven by Jesus' death on the cross for me and the world.

In this life I have learned a lot about love, heartbreak and rejection, at the same time, I am reminded of the hurt and rejection that I caused others in my life. Some of the greatest lessons I have learned came from me totaling messing up.

Though the church abandoned me to hell and declared me unsaved, Jesus did not. He rescued me when I turned to Him and it was through the rejection of the church, that I found the one who most accepted me. He loves me for who I am, faults and all, and His love will never waver.

I believe being gay was God's plan for me so I would draw closer to Him and experience His unconditional love first hand. I believe that I was gay because it would be the only way that I would understand other people who also struggle in this life. Because I felt like an outsider, I understood the prejudice from those who decided I wasn’t their kind of people. I witnessed how people including Christians discriminate, stereotype, judge, condemn and make up their minds about people they consider beneath them. And with this I can help bring back the gay people that society and the church have chased away.

God loves each and every person He has ever created and hopes that we will all return to Him. My prayer is that each person, no matter who they are, will let Him into their hearts so He can pour out His spirit to experience the depth of His true love. That is my prayer.

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