The Grudge Match: Truth vs. Old Lies Smack-Down
May 26, 2008
In recent days I’ve posted a half dozen random entries on recognizing and confronting the old messages we’ve taken in over the years on being gay and Christian in the first part of a series on Gifted by Otherness. I’m going to be getting back into the series next week with a second half focusing on the gifts gays and lesbians bring to the church but this week I want to tackle the back-log of uncompleted posts I’ve been accumulating in my draft folder.
Though we’re going to be moving on to other conversations, I know there remain other messages we’ve yet to talk about; messages both common to all of us and others that are particular and personal to each of us; some buried so deep within us and carried for so long that they’ve become like white noise, unnoticed on the surface even while playing on a continual loop in the background of our thoughts and emotions. Sometimes we can’t even name the message or know exactly what it’s saying but whatever it is, it feels wearily familiar and the weight of it holds us back from living in the fullness of freedom given to us by Christ.
Whatever message plays the loudest for you, don’t ignore it. You can’t. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. It does. Don’t try to drowned it out by sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting “ican’thearyouican’thearyouican’thearyou,” because that curmudgeonly old message will just patiently hang around until you’re too worn out to shout it down.
Instead, when the questioning and doubts begin playing, listen to them. Hear what they’re really saying and then confront them with the truth. I’m talking literally here. Speak words out loud so that you can both hear and speak them that bear witness to the truth of who you are in Christ and the truth of who God is and of his unending and unfathomable love and grace. When you doubt in some things, give thanks for those things you know and do the most obvious thing that you already know to do. Pray. Ask that God’s wisdom and peace might replace your uncertain and troubled mind. When the Apostle Paul encouraged the believers in Philippi to stand firm in Christ, he admonished them in love saying,
Always be glad because of the Lord! I will say it again: Be glad. Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel. Philippians 4a; 6-7 The Contemporary English Bible
May we be led in all we think and feel by the peace of God.
Posted in Gifted by Otherness, Special Series
Sweet Hope Cookies
May 27th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Amen! I find speaking the truth out loud to be inexpressibly powerful. In fact, when I came out to my grad school friend, Jen (who’s now a pastor and counsellor), she made me repeat myself a number of times because, in her words, I needed to “get used to saying that and being comfortable with it.”
Speaking the truth in love—even (perhaps especially) to ourselves is fantastic medicine.