The Unique Struggle of Same-Sex Attraction

Not long ago, someone asked me how long I've been dealing with same-sex attractions. I was surprised to find a big, round number before me: 20 years. Of those 20 years, five and a half have been as a married man and as a father. I'm not gay: I'm a new creation in Christ. I am a Christian struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA). I am a pastoral worker and a Bible college student, and homosexuality has been a prominent part of my journey as a Christian. I wish that it were not so, though part of me knows that God has been using this struggle powerfully to bring me to himself.

SSA has shown me how God can work in a specific issue like homosexuality while also showing me glimpses of God's fatherly heart and sin's deep effects on other people. It's given me personal and emotional insight as well as pastoral understanding. I had hoped God would have shown me these things in another, less painful and grief-stricken way, but his ways are his ways, mysterious and otherworldly, and I'm not one to tell him how he can do his job. His path has brought me to see same-sex attraction (SSA) as something both unique and something not so special.

Same as Other Sins?

 

In many ways SSA is similar to other forms of temptation. In God's view of sin being equally offensive as other sins, homosexuality is not all that special. For example, in 1 Corinthians 6 Paul says:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

For some, this is good news: homosexuality is no worse than other sins in the eyes of God, as all sin is equally punishable. I'm no better or worse a person for having SSA. I'm no more or less broken than anyone else simply because of the particular manifestation of my brokenness. I am no more or less saved because of it, and I need no extra portion of the Holy Spirit.   Continue at Haydn Sennitt