With God While Living in an Unrighteous Land

Since 2015, I have been well aware of the rapid growth of publicity for the men and women in the United States of America and abroad who, of all things, practice homosexuality and/or its close associate, “transgenderism”.

I was told about the wrongness of the former thing when I was about eleven or twelve, knowing it as “when two men or two women get married to each other”, and that it is a very serious sin of ingratitude for God’s commanded way of things as far as marriage is concerned. For a while, I only heard it mentioned in Bible passages, and I assumed that only people from the most uncivilized nations in the world would do such a rebellious and otherworldly thing. I had no idea that it existed so strongly inside of my own country, that is, until the verdict of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015.

This blog has been called Thoughts of a Learner for a reason. And yet, in a way, I still appreciate the many bygone years of my ignorance on this subject.

Can you relate?

Now this is just me, but my family has always liked to watch certain movies with plots set in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In these movies, if they are set in countries like the United States, the roles of men and women are distinct, any kind of adultery is treated as evil, and all of the characters except for the villains are predominantly decent and polite to each other. I could go on forever. The point being is that after seeing these kinds of movies for so many years, I at some point made the assumption that such an ideal world still had to be in existence somewhere. But when I attune my ears to present-day reality, all that I can hear, louder and louder, is, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” The movie-worlds, in spite of their implicit claims to historical accuracy, have each only showed the best things that could be brought out from a preselected society. And many contemporary movies don’t even care to do that sort of thing anymore.

Now that I know that a passing pair of people on the street or at the store could very well be in a relationship together that God has forbidden, I’ve been at loss about how to react. On the outside, I’ve skirted such people with never a word. On the inside, I’ve been sad and indignant. Only one time, when I made no assumptions about a person’s sin tendencies and only wanted to be her friend (because hey! I’m a sinner too!) was I not indignant but sad nevertheless.

Yesterday, a gathering of church friends invited my older sister and I to a fun outdoor mall for some food and fellowship. We had a great time! However, a sighting of identical bathroom signs that were nevertheless on different doors raised awareness in my mind of the surrounding present homosexual and “transgender” acceptance culture. I was full of questions: “Now that we are out here, what are we to do? What are we going to say to this world?”

Thankfully, the actions of the young gentleman who led our gathering helped provide me with the beginning an answer. On two different occasions, he led us all in prayer. Now prayer is a very simple thing. There is nothing magical or even feely about it. It is simply humanity talking to God. God made us; we’ve been meant to have a relationship that’s like being His sons and daughters from the beginning. Sin has come, but God has never said, “Stop praying.” Good dads don’t shut out disobedient children immediately from their lives and forever. This is because God is a God of reconciliation.

Well, that all recurred to me as we stood in a circle holding hands and devoting the next five minutes to thanking God for all of the wonderful and undeserved things that He has done: be it giving us warm and tasty food to eat or granting us salvation entirely because of the life and death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. Our leader didn’t care that we were publicly seen; he talked to God because God is both real and good.

“These dear friends,” I thought. “I’ve been with them for less than a year and don’t know much about them, but I love them a lot. Who knows, as we bring forth such public gratitude, perhaps some of us have known great sins in our lives from which God has nevertheless been merciful to save. Do I hold any of my friends in contempt? No! They talk to God more boldly than I do! They understand His means of reconciliation more strongly. What–what if a lesbian suddenly entered into our circle and repentantly asked God for true forgiveness? Might I just be seeing a repetition of the past belonging to someone who is already standing inside of this circle?” 

We broke up and dispersed with hearty goodnights and goodbyes. I looked around and couldn’t see strangers in the same way that I’d been seeing them earlier. I learned, that between me and them, we had the same self-worth. We had only chosen different paths by which to run from God. Sure, the homosexual decisions of many people have smeared America with something more obviously wrong to the moral person. But in the end, apart from Christ, God’s verdict would be the same for us all.

If only many from the “LGBT” community were not ridiculed but patiently and firmly led to Christ. I think that those who are led will be in the end the most grateful and happy to God for having been saved at all by His love and His blood. Perhaps they will be the loudest singers of the following song until they reach Heaven.

Wouldn’t you think so?

(:

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