I still remember the day I asked. I don’t know if I’d come across a specific verse; I assume so. I don’t recall hearing a specific teaching or a call to repentance. All I know is that I asked.
“God if this is how you think, then I need you to change me. I don’t understand it, I don’t know why; but if this is what you want, then I need you to change how I think about it.”
That was it. No fiery preaching had brought me to this point, no judgmental relatives. I wasn’t even feeling conviction, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.
Yet it worked. A couple of weeks later I realized I felt different. I’d actually pretty much forgotten my prayer. Yet here I was now with a completely different mindset.
I’d considered myself bisexual since the age of 15. I had friends who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, and various combinations of all of the above. I was raised in a family that welcomed diversity of all types; my mother encouraged my relationship with a self-described transgendered hermaphrodite.
Most of the churches I visited or attended regularly accepted same-sex relationships, either openly or with the unspoken agreement that as long as you didn’t talk about it, it was OK. I had it pretty well set in my mind that God was a God of love, and He didn’t care who you loved, as long as you were committed to the relationship.
But then came that day. Later, I came across Proverbs 16:3 in the Amplified Version: “Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.”
That’s what happened to me. I woke up and realized my thoughts were now in agreement with what I read in the Bible. I no longer felt like same-sex relationships were acceptable to God. I didn’t have any hard feelings towards those I knew who still accepted them, but I had a knowing that it wasn’t what God wanted for me or anyone else.
I have heard stories of people praying for years, desperate for God to change them, without result. I wish I had a perfect answer for them, but I don’t. Unless … maybe …
I simply wanted God so much that I was willing to exchange my desires for His, and I was innocent enough to trust Him to do it. I was trying to please Him, not pacify accusing family members or become acceptable to a cruel, condemning religious system.
Sometimes simpler is better. There may be occasions for deliverance or prayer and fasting; but my own experience proved to me that sometimes wanting God more than anything else, even my own desire to be right, may be all it takes.
Rhonda Jacobs is a pseudonym to protect the identity of the writer.
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