Desperate Joy

  I have always struggled with my sexuality.  It has weighed on me like a load of bricks my entire life.  I have never known much, if any peace around it.  At least not until the last year or so, but even then, it continues to be a struggle.  Not that I struggle with my identity as a heterosexual man, but that I have always used porn and masturbation as my only outlet for my desires. I know I am not alone in my struggles.   This type of struggle is a far cry from what God has in mind for our sexuality.   He wants it to be a source of sacred joy and satisfaction, to bring forth life and flourishing to ourselves, our spouses and families.   It has taken a great deal of therapy, Twelve Step work, reading and study, but I am beginning to grasp and understand God's purposes for sexuality.   I am gaining, bit by bit, a vision of the glorious beauty that God wants to shine through my sexuality. A key passage that has helped me grasp God's design...

  I grew up in a home where my parents modeled more traditional gender roles for the most part.  My dad was the dominant figure, though my mom had her moments as well.  She was more the spiritual anchor of the family, but my dad made sure we were at church three times a week.  Until I was in school around five, my mom stayed home to care for my sister and myself and my dad worked full time.  Once my sister and I were at school full-time, my mom began to teach full-time at the same Christian school my sister and I attended.  This arrangement worked well for our family. Gender roles have certainly fallen on hard times.   There is some good that has come from this, and there is some bad.   I have been encouraged to see many fathers step into more nurturing roles, and certainly many areas of the economy have benefitted from women becoming more active participants.   What we can't escape, though, is that God has a specific design for marriage,...

  If you have ever read the prophetic books of the Old Testament (and you should!) you will find that God often calls on his prophets to become living object lessons.  He has them preach powerful messages at times and at others he has them act out the lessons that his people needed to hear.  There are many dramatic examples of this, but the most dramatic is probably found in the book of Hosea. "And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord." (Hosea 1:2) This is bit mind-boggling, but here we see God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute.   Nothing would have been more abhorrent to the mind of the God-fearing Jew, but Hosea responds in faith-filled obedience.   He goes out and finds a woman named Gomer and to make his wife.   We are not clear on all the details here.   It may be that he found her while she was a prostitute and married ...

  God's love is the only love that can bring the dead back to life.  It reaches down into the darkest, dirtiest depths and pulls out the most wretched of us and makes us into kings and queens.  God's love finds us in our tombs and moves us into paradise.  He reaches out to us when we are nothing more than broken vessels of clay and makes us into vessels of honor suitable to serve in his palace. Last time we began to look at Ezekiel 16 where we find a beautiful parable in which God describes in vivid imagery his relationship with Israel.   God's intention is for our bodies and sexuality to be a symbol of his eternal covenantal love that he has with Israel and the church (see Ephesians 5).   As we look at Ezekiel, we are finding what this means in practical ways.   We looked at verses 3-6 in the last post, this time we will examine verses 6-10. Ezekiel 16:6-10 "6. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee...