Sexuality Is Not An Identity

http://drjamesdobson.org/blogs/ryan-dobson/ryan-dobson/2014/03/21/sexuality-is-not-an-identity?sc=FFB2014

“Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.” ~ Christopher Yuan

There has been a lot of news recently about athletes who are gay. Jason Collins became the first openly gay player to sign a contract within on of the four major U.S. sports (ESPN). Michael Sam–a former University of Missouri Tigers football player–announced that he was gay a few days before the NFL Combine which could make him the first openly gay player in the NFL (ESPN). And the question that keeps being asked on different networks in one way or another is something to the extent of, “Is the NBA and NFL ready for their first openly gay players?” I think these are bad questions, but I will get to that in a moment.

First, let me tell you about Christopher Yuan whom I have grown to respect a lot over this past week. Because of some early exposure to pornography, Yuan struggled with his sexual identity. And very early in his life he found himself attracted to other males. At the same time, his parents’ marriage was falling apart, and he could see that divorce was inevitable. He finally became confident enough in his desires to embrace his choice of sexuality, and began visiting gay bars around town. Yuan could never find the happiness and satisfaction he so deeply desired. He had emotional and spiritual holes in his life, although he only recognized the emotional hole, and they were very deep. Eventually, Yuan began experimenting with drugs until he became a full fledged addict and drug-dealer.

<Click here to listen to Christopher Yuan’s complete Testimony on Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk>

Meanwhile, while Christopher Yuan continued to pursue anything that could help him enjoy his life, his parents had become Christians. Their marriage had turned around, and soon they were praying for and witnessing to Yuan every moment they could. At one point, they flew to Atlanta and Christopher basically kicked them out of his home.

A few weeks later, Christopher Yuan was arrested and sentenced to several years in jail for dealing illegal drugs. And a little while after that, Christopher found out he was HIV+ which led him to begin reading the Bible. He was ready to commit his life to Jesus, but there was one problem he still had to deal with: it seemed to him, that the Bible condemned homosexuality. Yuan decided to go visit the prison chaplain who told Christopher that the Bible didn’t condemn Christianity. He handed Christopher a book that explained why being a homosexual and being a Christian were compatible.

Christopher Yuan read the book on homosexuality while continuing to read the Bible, but the more he read the less he believed the book. Soon Christopher stopped reading the book on homosexuality all together, and he was faced with one of the most difficult choices he’s ever made in his life. “Do I walk away from homosexuality? Or walk away from what God teaches?”

It was during this struggle that Christopher Yuan began to realize something very important: in our culture, sexuality is seen as an identity (i.e. heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, etc…), but our identity doesn’t come from our sexuality, our identity comes from God. He put it this way, “God doesn’t say, ‘be heterosexual because I am heterosexual’ just like he doesn’t say, ‘be gay for I am gay.’ God says, ‘be holy for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:16)

Sexuality is not an identity, sexuality comes from an identity. My identity does not come from my intimate relationship with my wife, my identity comes directly from my relationship (or lack of) with God. And that truth is the same for Jason Collins, Michael Sam, Christopher Yuan, and you.

And that brings me back to the reason I think the questions being asked about the NBA, NFL, Jason Collins, and Michael Sam are bad questions. First of all, look at the terminology: “first openly gay player (ESPN)” the phrasing alone implies that Collins’ or Sam’s identities are tied to their sexuality. It’s the same terminology that is often used inappropriately toward people affected by disabilities: “Do you see that autistic kid over there?” No I don’t! I see a kid named Peter, who happens to have autism. He is not an autistic kid, just like Collins and Sam are not gay players. They are players who are gay. If you think it’s just a matter of semantics, you’re wrong. It’s a vital distinction, and it misleads the direction of the conversation.

As Christians, and as a culture, we must realize that sexuality is not an identity–sexuality comes from our identity. Christopher Yuan saw this clearly through his dilemma in prison. He says over and over again that giving his life to Christ meant simultaneously accepting his new identity as a son of a perfectly holy God. In other words, it was a choice. Following Jesus Christ was a choice, the outcome of which was a new identity in the truths that God teaches. Yuan said, “the choice was either to walk away from God and continue with my lifestyle, or to choose Jesus Christ and follow what the Bible says.”

And that’s why I want to end with the quote I have posted at the beginning of this (very) long blogpost. Christopher said, ”Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.” This quote summarizes the Christian way to approach the topic and struggle of homosexuality (and any other form of sexuality). Whether we realize it or not, we often participate in our culture’s embrace of sexuality as an identity. Christians are notoriously brutal when it comes to dealing with people who come from a different worldview. We often forget that these people are human beings, loved by God. In fact, he loved them so much he sent his Son to die for them–just like he sent his Son to die for us. Yes, that’s right. You and me, and all of the other Christians on the planet who think they are good people. Jesus died for us. God looked down and saw all of us with the identity of “condemned sinners” and sent his son to give us all a new identity of “adopted sons.” When we remember that we have a new identity as “adopted sons” we will stop treating this guy as a gay man and this girl as a lesbian. Instead, we will see them as human beings, with names, and stories, and the potential to change the world. And then it happens. We begin to love instead of hate. We begin to serve instead of demand. We begin to influence instead of condemn. That doesn’t mean we unconditionally approve of their lifestyles, just like I hope you would never approve of my actions if I cheated on my spouse or married a second, third, or fourth wife.

“Unconditional love is not the same thing as unconditional approval of my behavior.” (C.Yuan)

So as you read or hear story after story about this gay person or that gay person. Remember that sexuality is not an identity, sexuality comes from an identity. And correct other people. Don’t let them get away with defining someone based on that person’s sexual preference. Instead, hold up the same standard that God put in place, for yourself and everyone else on the planet: “Be holy as I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16) That is the beginning of your identity.

*Contributing editor for this post: Daniel Ryan Day

Great Books: Why Parents Should Read Aloud to Their Children

Copied from the link below:

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/why-parents-should-read-aloud-to-their-children.php

By Dr. Michael Platt Printed in Practical Homeschooling #12, 1996. 4

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The other night at a birthday party, I happened to mention Babar the elephant, who supplied my childhood with happiness and touches of suffering, such as his mother's death. "Who is Babar?" someone asked. The occasion was festive, spirits light-hearted, and the evening young; so I brought out the tiny copy of Babar the King that I carry in my satchel, along with the Gospels and the American founding documents, and I handed it to him.

As my questioner looked at it in silence, he began to smile. Soon an almost giddy happiness lighted up his face. He then opened his mouth and said, "This is giving me shivers. I must have read this. I recognize these pictures. I have not thought of this since I was a child." Page after page he turned, exclaiming in the same vein. "Yes, there's the elephant in the elevator." "Yes, there's the elephant doing calisthenics with the old lady." "Yes, here is the elephant in the palisserie." And, "Here is Babar becoming King." He was having such an experience, such a rapturous recapturing of time past, and such a recognition of himself, that we all fell silent and let him go on oblivious of us and the silence surrounding his sighs of happiness.

A thrill akin to what an atheist experiences upon learning that the Lord has protected him, yea from his own atheism, all those years of his murmuring and waywardness, until he could see the loving light, was breaking over our friend.

Why is it good to read aloud to your children? Well, so that when they grow up they can have such happiness as my friend was having; so that they in turn can pass such happiness on to their children, world without end.

Let me explain. Nothing in human life is so fixed that it cannot be undone. You can stray from a good childhood. You can overcome a bad childhood. Free will exists. Nevertheless, how much better it is to begin well! But our beginnings are not our own. What is good in them comes from others. From our family, from nature, from nature's God. Thus throughout nature, it is the natural duty of parents not merely to procreate offspring, but to pass to them the blessings they have received. In short, to make the childhood good. This homeschoolers know.

The good things that fill your imagination when you are young strengthen your soul with two mighty things: the aspiration that will carry you to high endeavor and the comfort that will keep suffering from consuming you. As it happens, I can illustrate these twin goods from Babar. When our boy, Anton, was an infant he fretted much when being changed. So one day I put the picture on the cover of Babar the King in front of him. Focusing through his tears upon Babar mounted on horseback, banner unfurling, he gradually quieted. Ever since then, this picture of chivalric virtue had the same effect.

Was it the dim sense that such powers of good as this fictional elephant commands are somewhere in the real universe at this moment on the way to help him? Or was it the image of virtue overcoming adversity, pain, and discontent, of Babar saying, "I shall overcome evil, you can do it, too," that strengthened our boy? I rather think it was the comfort that calmed infant Anton, but now that he is six it is the lesson that adversity can be overcome that appeals.

Babar is both a rescuer and a model of virtue. He is both on the way to help you and a hero who shows you how to help yourself. Read through the stories; all acknowledge that we are vulnerable, threatened, prone to error - that mothers die, snakes bite, baby carriages head for precipices when we get distracted - and all affirm that confidence, firmness, and sagacity may prevail, as King Babar does.

Obviously the Babar stories honor families. Many of them do so by setting out on adventures and by ending at home. One family took this to an interesting length. After reading Babar and other wonderful children's stories, of Heidi, of the Pied Piper, of Pinocchio, the ones by Hans Christian Anderson, etc., Christina Hardyment and her family spent a summer traveling around Europe to the scenes where these stories take place. That wonderful summer (so different from going to Disney!) is recorded in Heidi's Alp (Atlantic Monthly, 1987). It is from that book, and Ann Hildebrand's book Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff (Twayne, 1991) that I learned how the Babar stories came to be, and thus another reason for reading together as a family.

One day Cecile de Brunhoff told the first Babar story. Soon after, Jean, her husband, added pictures. Published, it soon acquired a following. It is good that it did, for Jean caught tuberculosis, and had to leave the family for a sanitarium in Switzerland. Far away and ill, he stayed in touch with his family through his work on the later Babar stories. He stayed in fatherly contact with the children especially through the stories themselves, in which Babar, though early orphaned, grows up to be an exemplary father, which is one of the enduring sources of his appeal to children and their parents. These wonderful stories began in a family and they bound that family together even as members were passing away. They still do, for although Laurent de Brunhoff's continuations may not have quite the same qualities of his father's work, they have always honored them. How to honor thy father and also to thine own self be true has been the story of the younger de Brunhoff's life.

Babar protects his family. The Babar stories can nurture, protect, and even in some sense rescue families which are infected with the world's disdain for family commitment and family roles.
Even more, we can also take hero and book as a model to emulate.

What a wonderful thing it would be for all parents to make up stories and share them with their children the way the de Brunhoffs have! I've tried. Bozeman is a black horse, 5 inches tall, who came up to me in a cafe in Montana, in a town named for him, and asked to join our family, whereupon I spotted him with white-out in accord with Anton's desire, and sent him back to Vermont. When we moved down to Houston for a term, we left many things. One day Anton and Sally missed them, and I asked, "Don't you think Bozeman might bring them when the snow clears?" It was soon acknowledged that if anybody could do it, Bozeman would. And sure enough, soon a postcard from Granna in Virginia arrived, saying Bozeman had passed through, pulling a Connestoga wagon with Buffalo helping, too. Another card from the staff of the Casey Jones motel in Jackson, Tennessee (a good Christian establishment), tracked their progress, and sure enough as April was coming to an end, in came Bozeman with the things left behind and some cowboy boots for Sally picked up at the Texas border.

Well, we like this story, but maybe that only illustrates that not all family stories travel outside the family, which is no reason not to keep telling them in the family.

Few of us have the gifts of Jean de Brunhoff, but we could at least retell the great stories we know. Even a well-known story becomes special when retold by your mother or father. My daughters, Heather and Derry, once asked me "What do you do?" I replied, "I teach Shakespeare," which I could see did not illuminate things very much. So I launched into a retelling of Hamlet, a story which asks the question, "Should you always obey your father?" and King Lear, a story which asks the question, "Are eldest daughters always the worst?" and the question, "Is it wrong to ask 'Do you love me?'"

Be it The Three Bears or the three monsters in Beowulf, we can always retell the great stories we know.
Moreover, we parents have stories that no one else can tell our children. We and we alone can tell the stories of our own childhood. "When I was a little girl, I . . ." We and we alone can tell them the stories of their own infancy and childhood. "When you were a baby . . ." and "The day you were born . . ." When they are older, we can tell them the stories of our courtship. "When I first met your Daddy . . ." These, too, are to be shared and no one else can do this for them.

No one else can do this for us, either. Families are, to an important degree, people who share stories. Consider what a gift Carrie Young's mother gave her in the story "The Wedding Dress" which she has given to us now, in a volume of the same name (Laurel, 1992). Countries are a people made by a shared story. For us Americans the story is made up of the principles of the Declaration, the compromise of the Constitution, the Civil War, the settling up from sea to shining sea, and the burden of world responsibilities. The souls that make up countries and families are also made of stories. So let the stories be good ones.

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5 Ways to Sit at His Feet

http://www.karenehman.com/2014/02/5-ways-to-sit-at-his-feet/?utm_content=buffer2eaba&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

If you have found your way here via my Proverbs 31 devotion, welcome! {And if you are new here, I’d love for you to connect with me on Facebook  or follow me on Twitter.}

If you haven’t read my devotion, Scurrying or Seated? click here to do so. {It is on distractions and to-do lists keeping us from connecting with God}

As mentioned in my devotion, here are 5 Ways to Sit at His Feet.

1. Give your to-do list to the Lord.

Sometimes it is so hard to hear the Lord’s voice through all of the hustle and bustle of our day. We stress and obsess about our to do list and all of our many appointments. The best way to focus in on our time with God {and to leave our to do list behind} is actually to take our to do list along with us! Get alone and get quiet. Ask God to bring to your mind all that you must get done. Make a list of these things. Then, spend time praying through each item on the list. As God brings more tasks to your mind, write them down. Don’t worry that it is unspiritual to stop halfway through a prayer and jot and item down. It helps you to clear your mind and then allows you to focus better on your time alone with God. He is concerned about all of the details of our life even if it is our plan to go grocery shopping or run to the dry cleaners.

2. Get intentional.

Treat your time alone with God as serious as any other appointment you have. When you have to go to the dentist, you brush your teeth and make sure you show up on time. Why do we assume our time alone with God will just happen spontaneously? Learn to treat it with intentionality. Write down the time you will spend with God in your planner or set an alarm on your phone. Have a plan for what you will read in the Bible or whether you will write in a journal or listen to worship music.

3. Read and write.

Get a hold of a good devotional book or Bible study workbook. Use them to help you know where to read in the Bible. But don’t just read the Bible. Write your thoughts down too. Keeping a journal–whether it is a paper one or a file on your computer or tablet—will help you grow your relationship with God. You will process as you write out your thoughts. Also learn to both read and write prayers. Read prayers in the book of Psalms out loud to God. Then, write out your own specific prayers to Him as well. It will amaze you when you go back later and see the ways that God answered your prayers.

4. Make a recording and memorize.

Use an online app or program such as Audacity to record yourself reading out loud any verses or passages of scripture you would like to memorize. Then, load them on an iPod, phone or MP3 player. Pop in the headphones and listen to the verses each day as you walk, do housework or cook dinner. It makes it so much easier to memorize this way!

5. Discover the Bible’s non-negotiables.

Grab a Bible and a notebook. Pick a New Testament book such as James or Colossians. Read it through stopping each time you see a non-negotiable command that we as Christians are supposed to do. When you come across one, write it down. For example:  James 1:19-21 says…

“My dearly loved brothers, understand this: Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.  Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and evil, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save you.”

So you would write in your notebook:

When dealing with others, I need to:

~ Be quick to listen

~ Be slow to speak

~ Be slow to get angry because being angry doesn’t accomplish the things of God.

I must also:

~ Get rid of that which is morally wrong and evil.

~ I need to spend time planting the word of God humbly in my heart. It will save me!

When we read the Bible, we learn. However, when we write out the commands in a way that is personal to us, we allow the word to take root deep within our hearts. This will help us the next time we are faced with a situation where we need to react in a godly manner but find it challenging. When we have trained our brain to recall the nonnegotiable’s of a Christian’s behavior, it allows us to act and react in a much better way.

Now for the quiet time giveaway:

One person who comments will receive the following:

~ A Bible study notebook

~ Some Dunkin Donuts Cinnamon Spice Coffee

~ A notecard set on a ring for recording verses you want to memorize

~ One of my favorite devotional books on John 15 Secrets of the Vine by Bruce Wilkinson. It helps you discover how to live a life that bears fruit for God and strengthens your walk with Him.