“This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and she, (Michelle) you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others.” — President Barack Obama , announcing his personal support, as a Christian, for the legalization of gay marriage.
“God is the author of marriage, and we will not let an activist politician like Barack Obama who is beholden to gay marriage activists for campaign financing to turn marriage into something political that can be redefined according to presidential whim.” — Brian Brown, President, National Organization for Marriage, disagreeing with the president.
“I cannot stress this enough to you, but I’ll still say it: I’ll never be Christian. I think your Bible is nothing more than a piece of literature. I don’t believe in your God, and never will. But I will criticize you when you use your God to “fix” homosexuality, as if it were something to be fixed.” — An anonymous young friend, tired of it all.
Oh, Brother,
Or . . . oh, God? Yes, He’s listening.
It is confusing enough for people who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction in the cultural soup in which we all marinate. Now we have to weigh the opinion of a misguided president trading gay hopes for hoped-for votes . . . against a God who actually cares what happens to us beyond election day. Hmmm . . . the wisdom of the creator or the babblings of the great distracter? As always . . . we get to choose.
Don’t get distracted by the cultural-dabbler-in-chief. It may play well in Hollywood, but not so much in the hearts of those who love God. One man’s opinion is, after all . . . one man’s opinion. One man’s soul is one man’s soul. The bottom line is that President Obama’s opinion on this issue is worthless to the man or woman whose soul longs for God. Dismiss Obama’s words as the self-serving pitch they are and continue moving forward, putting it in the same category with all the other distracting justifications you’ve discarded in your search for wholeness. Don’t even pause.
Greater men than President Obama have trivialized the Word of God, or even usurped it, for personal gain. It happens in the pulpit by timid, tepid preachers and it can certainly happen in the White House by vote-hungry presidents. That’s why it is so important to know the truth for yourself so you are not misled by those who place little value on it.
Yes, I know it would be nice to be healed by presidential proclamation, but that doesn’t happen. God heals. Barack is not God. Of course, Obama is appealing to those who do not see a need for healing, nor, if Obama has his way, will they ever. That’s not his concern; re-election is. Truth is on the auction block for the highest donor. While Obama contends the expression of his support for same-sex marriage is a reflection of his faith, it is more likely an act of turning supposed compassion into campaign cash. It’s no surprise he followed his pronouncement by jetting to a party in Hollywood at George Clooney’s home, where he raised $15 million over dinner. The president’s message plays wildly in the land of illusion.
Meanwhile, in the land of reality, we realize that people who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction, or pornography, or heterosexual lust and adultery are sexually broken,
People are broken.
All.In some way.
Recognizing brokenness is anticipation for wholeness. We can dismiss it, dwell on it, or deal with it.
I have broken only two bones in my lifetime. A wrist and a rib. The result of each was an increase in pain, a decrease in mobility and a denied sense of helplessness during a time of adjustment and healing. I still have the wrist and the rib and they both work just fine now.I didn’t decide to break my wrist. I didn’t plan to break a rib. Absent of decisions or plans, they still broke. And the rest of me? It compensated, covered the effects of each break, rose to the occasion, took up the slack, pretended all was well.I wasn’t doing anything wrong, either time. The wrist, in fact, sacrificed itself in an effort to keep me from tumbling further on the hills and landscape rocks in our backyard as I was weed-eating in preparation for my daughter’s birthday party. It backed up the efforts of the palm, which threw itself down in a sacrificial act of protection. Snap, crackle, pop . . . . swell up, stop bending and retreat on a wrist R&R.In my stubbornness, it took me several hours to grasp that the hand extending from the wrist had no grasp. “I guess it’s broken.”
The rib? Talk about a bone with a mind of its own. It snapped in a concerted resistance effort against self-improvement. I was suspended between two weight benches, ankles on one, hands on the other, lifting myself up and down almost effortlessly (yeah . . . ) when all of a sudden it felt as if my workout partner had amused himself by slamming my rib cage with a sledgehammer.
“Who did that?” I exclaimed, lowering myself to the floor between the benches.
The rib was silent . . . and everyone else just paused and resumed working out. Standing up was torture; breathing was like ingesting needles. My usual self-medication — denial — ran in with a rush of adrenaline and I said, as I would do if run over by a road-grader: “I’m fine.”
In about six weeks, I could say “I’m fine,” with a straight face, not a grimace of pain.
I guess it really was broken.
Brokenness is usually pretty obvious. A wrist that won’t bend; a rib that feels like a blade in your lungs. A bulb that shines no light. A tree limb laying in the yard. A glass in pieces on a hard tile floor. The solutions are usually obvious too: screw in a new bulb; fetch the ax; sweep the floor. The light continues; you have some firewood; your bare feet are safe. We respond and tidy up and move on.
But what about sexual brokenness?
Well . . . we tend to respond . . . tidy up . . . and move on. The response can be a muted “oh” or a shocked “Oh . . . my God!.” Tidying up ranges from a-pat-on-the-back-and-a-passing-prayer to a dictatorial list of dos-and-don’ts delivered by a spiritual watchdog dutifully recording progress on a report card, marking pass or fail. Moving on can be as beautiful as a bless you and an arm around the shoulder as we go together . . . or a disdaining look of disturbed incredulity that becomes a never-knew-you-never-will insistence in denial, a multi-directional scattering to put as much distance between thee and me as possible.
We be movin’ on . . . us . . . the unbroken.
Adios . . . amigos?
There are those who hang close and respond with what they hope will be comforting words: “you’ll be fine.” Is that somehow expected to be more comforting than our own well-worn, oft-mis-proved “I’ll be fine?” Trite answers are convenient, but not compassionate. How about a more honest one: “Yes, you are broken. Like me. But you don’t have to be. Me either.”
Fortunately for us, we’re not a cold, indifferent piece of glass that slips off the edge of a counter and smashes into a million pieces, lacking even the wherewithal to ask for “a little help here, please?” We’re not a tree limb looking dumbly up at the tree with an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” plea. And we’re not a spent bulb. We’re a dimmer light, perhaps, than we want to be . . . but we are not without the opportunity to shine again.
I’m broken. Wondrously made we are, with many parts, in need of constant maintenance. Are you a liar? Do you gossip? Do you have a heart of stone when you see the needs of others? Do you lust? Speak profanity? Feast your senses on pornography? Neglect the homeless? Commit adultery? Withhold forgiveness? Are you greedy? Have you turned your back on your mother and father . . . as in not honoring them? Do you fill your mind with impure thoughts and reject Scripture? Neglect to worship? Feed your pride? Boast a bit?
Yep . . . you’re broken. Let me count the ways. Of course, counting your sins and ignoring mine would certainly be a sign of . . . brokenness.
So why do some of the sexually-broken take such offense at the term? Well, because some do not see themselves as broken, this distinction being primarily one of faith. If we have faith and we believe God, we know what His Word says about sexuality, and if we go beyond that, we are broken. If we reject faith and believe what the world says about sexuality, we’re not. Well, actually, we really are, but since we have no faith, we think we’re not, which can seem oddly comforting and permanently condemning. For people in that position, perhaps it is better that they not consider themselves broken, for the world will not repair them. Why?
It’s broken.
The world’s embrace will not chase away the chill of emptiness for the soul who seeks through faith to be what God intended: whole.
God gave us “The Word,” but we have come up with so many more. We live in interpretive-Babel, never sure in the first place that people mean what they say or even know what they are saying means. So, brokenness — an acknowledgement that we need God’s healing — becomes instead synonymous with no-goodness, and when we hear it spoken of us by others, we see the broom sweeping up the shattered glass for the trash. How dare you? I’m not that broken.
I am broken. Thank God. The result of which has been an increase in pain, a decrease in mobility and a denied sense of helplessness during a time of adjustment and healing. Not so different than the twisted wrist and the fractured rib. No one could really see those either. On the day I broke the wrist, I made it all the way through my daughter’s party without saying a word. On the day I cracked the rib, I finished the workout. We compensate for our brokenness until we cannot bear the pain or we cannot walk the walk of wholeness.
But God restores, repairs, redeems and returns me to the shelf. He uses me. Out of my brokenness, He builds something new.
But . . . SEXUAL brokenness? That sounds more like something just doesn’t work, for which there are countless remedies and prescriptions. Or have you not watched television or opened your spam e-mail?
What is sexual brokenness? It is any expression of sexuality that is not what God intended. After all, remember, He looked at everything He had made and said “it was good.” The path from the garden was clearly a steady decline, swiftly descending from uncomfortable nakedness to homosexuality, pornography, heterosexual sexual addiction, lust, adultery, idolatry . . . and more. That’s brokenness. That’s sin. And it is not good.
Maybe we don’t like the brokenness terminology because we’re so accustomed to discarding broken things. In the spring time, if you drive through the neighborhoods, you see cabinets and bookshelves and chairs and lamps and TVs, perched along the curb with signs: “take me,” or “free.” Why? Usually because they’re broken. Someone picks them up and fixes them and they live on in their inanimate way.
But that’s the world. The world eventually discards everything.
In God’s view, brokenness is hopefulness. A broken heart, for instance, is the centerpiece for healing. Hearts are made brand new. A broken spirit soars to greater strength when healed. It is in our brokenness that we turn to Him and He responds.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise. — Psalm 51:17
So, make a sacrifice. Certainly give God your best . . . and certainly give God your brokenness. He knows what it is; He knows what it means; He knows what it’s costing you; He knows what to do. He knows you.
Whether we are the president of the United States or just a little presence in a little place there placed by God, thatGod, in His kindness, reveals to us our brokenness, which brings to us our tears of repentance, which drop to soften the hardened soil of our life in which he plants his new seeds and healing grows.
Brokenness and blessedness. They both begin with “B.” As does Barack, a fact which is, of course, merely a distraction.
We can take brokenness to the bank, or we can take it to the altar.
God Bless,
Thom
Thom,
You continue to be a source of truth and joy.
I have thought of you often recently. I listened to Matthew Vines’ eisegesis of scripture and the response by Dr. James White.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQjNJUSraY
Thank you for all you do.
That balance of conviction and compassion is both rare and encouraging!
Thank you, Thom, for your response to the folly of our President. The one thing that is especially troublesome in this whole effort to legitimate the homosexual movement is that not a word is said about those who are willing to use violence to achieve their desired goals. Behind the lesbian gay effort stands the pedophile,, usually sporting the NAMBLA signs. There are those who justify sex between children and adults, predicating it on the basis of love and gentleness, but who fail to recognize the trauma done to a child not at a stage for such exposure. The real motive is self-gratification of the adult in the situation, and self-gratification is the justification for rape and other sins of that nature. Having counseled individuals who had their lives disrupted and basically ruined by such violations, I find it remiss on the part of those advocating sexual freedom today to neglect to even express concern for those who have been abused sexually by individuals seeking their own gratification.
Dr. Willingham,
Thanks for your response and input. You may not know that I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse myself, at the age of eight. It does indeed take a life and change it to something different than it would have been had it not been for the evil intervention.
Pedophilia crosses all sexual boundaries, homosexual and heterosexual. Many victims remain silent for decades because they fear the response they may receive and the shame they will feel when others know.
Bottom line . . . God provided for all the sexual freedom we will ever need. The historical record for stepping outside of His boundaries to establish our own definitions of sexual freedom is devastating. Has anything good ever come from it?
“Hmmm . . . the wisdom of the creator or the babblings of the great distracter? As always . . . we get to choose.”
True dichotomy. I’ll choose the wisdom of the creator.
Thom – Are you willing to say that your childhood sexual abuse is the “entire” cause or only part of it . I’m not sure everybody agrees on the cause and can’t then agree on “the” cure excepting that prayer crosses all boundaries . To put your feet to the fire a bit – Obama’s feelings towards homosexuals has been shown before in gatherings in D.C. and I’m not sure you have access to his fundraising account showing the source and the amount of donations . Homosexuals are in every facet of life and live outside California . Is there a difference in a person with homosexual tendencies and one who lives the lifestyle – if not in your eye , then maybe God’s ?
Jack,
Determining “cause” is always tough. I believe the childhood sexual abuse and my father leaving our home when I was seven were contributing factors and things I had to deal with later when I was ready to reconcile those events. However, I’ve not said they were the cause. I also don’t use the word “cure.” I don’t believe a “cure” is the goal. Holiness is the goal. All of us have temptations, struggles and stumbling blocks to work through in that process. All of us have a sin nature we want to overcome through Christ. My weakness happened to be in the area of sexuality. It’s not so much of consequence to me whether there is a “cure.” My responsibility is to resist sin and try to live a life that pleases God.
Some people with “homosexual tendencies” very clearly are not in the lifestyle, just as many people with alcoholic tendencies choose not to drink. They have decided that resisting the temptation to sin is important enough to stay out of it. So, yes, there is a difference. And, on the flip side, there are far too many people who exhibit no homosexual tendencies at all who are almost hopelessly sexually addicted.
You’re right that I have no access to Obama’s fundraising accounts and that homosexuals are in the heartland as clearly as in Hollywood. Perhaps the president’s decision is based on his own beliefs only and that he is not motivated by the reality that he has probably lost the more conservative states already. I personally think his more liberal positions do put his campaign in a position to benefit, and that the $15 million raised the day after his declaration of support for same-sex marriage is not purely coincidental.
I have encountered the issue of sexual abuse many times during my years in this world. I knew something of it from childhood, from my work as a Social Worker I in the Missouri State Welfare Dept. in 1961-62 and in the Kentucky Division of Public Assistance in 1967- 68 and during my 28 years of pastoring in Missouri and North Carolina. In fact, it was five cases of incest in a three month period that moved me to go back to school in distance learning and earn a Master’s degree in Counseling. During that degree program I wrote a paper on the subject of incest. Afterwards, I served as a counselor in a NC Senior High School, and my responsibilities included the pathology of incest (due to that paper). I can well appreciate the problem, Thom, as you outlined it in your reply to my comment. Having counseled a number of people who have been abused sexually, I have some idea of the pain and misery ti can bring to an individual’s life. I also know something about it from childhood experience, too. One of the things I wanted to do, had I continued my education in counseling, would have been to work on the impact of sexual abuse on a child in the various stages of his or her life and the effect of it on behaviors and accomplishments in adulthood. I know of some cases where the abuse occurred during the industry stage (ages 6-9) and the individual had a real problem with holding a steady job and accomplishing much in life.