He Is Good He Is Good
By Jeremy Marks
God’s gentleness turned me right around and instead of pursuingthe “gay” life, I resolved to find His answer.
Born in England in 1952, I was brought up with two sisters bycaring Christian parents. I have much to be thankful for, including agood education and a caring family of upright moral standing. Sadly,my parents’ marriage was difficult for them. Being a rather insecureand sensitive child, the resulting conflict and pressure reinforcedin me a poor self-image and deep feelings of inferiority.
I was afraid of being misunderstood and not attaining thestandards required of me. I was surrounded by strong and demandingwomen, with no balanced male influence. This made me fearful of womenand later on, of marriage.
In my teenage years, I recognized my jaded and unbalanced attitudetowards women and had some success in correcting this. But, to mydismay, from the time of puberty I was aware of a growing attractiontowards men. I knew from my Christian upbringing that marriage (orcelibacy) is God’s plan for our lives. I also knew homosexualpractices are an abomination to God, but I had no idea how to changemy feelings.
I bitterly concluded that if God was real, He was utterly callous.It seemed that His sole concern was that my life-style should beexemplary in every way, and it was up to me to make sure I conformed!
Believing God to be a tyrant and knowing society’s rejection ofthe homosexual, I completely repressed my feelings. Then thetestimony of a school friend brought me to the Lord at the age of 21.I hoped that I could forget these fears and lead a normal life.
At first, the excellent teaching from my new church absorbed myinterest, but there were deep unmet emotional needs God wanted toreach. When my longing for closeness with a man began to resurface,my conversion experience was challenged to the roots. I was convincedthat my “failure” to conform to God’s “norm” could only result inGod’s total rejection of me.
Within a year or so, I found the courage to tell my pastor andanother friend in the church of my homosexual feelings. To my relief,they showed real concern. However, they had no idea how to deal withthis problem. They concluded that I must keep my feelings undercontrol and be positive about a life of celibacy.
However, my constant preoccupation with homosexual feelings couldnot be swept under the carpet. The vicious circle of fears and thesense of hopelessness in my predicament was severely painful. I hadbeen brought up to exercise self-control, but although this made lifeeasier for other people, it was torture to me.
After a number of unsuccessful attempts to get helpful counsel, Ibegan experimenting with my homosexuality to discover if it was real.When I briefly became involved in a physical relationship with a man,the relief was overwhelming. It seemed so good to relate to someonewho understood how I was feeling.
To my astonishment, the Lord drew very close to me at this time,not in approval of my sexual sin but to assure me that He fullyunderstood what I was going through. I saw that I could trust Himwith the problem. This was a revelation to me, since I thought it wassolely my responsibility to sort it out. God’s gentleness turned meright around and instead of pursuing the “gay” life, I resolved tofind His answer.
When I confessed my sin to the pastor, he realized the seriousneed and committed himself to regular counseling. Together we soughtGod on every issue we could think of, praying for deliverance,healing of past hurts, checking out my family and Christianbackground.
Despite the thorough counseling, my emotional needs seemed largelyuntouched, to our mutual disappointment. However, his friendship wasvery precious to me and kept me out of trouble.
Two years later, I had to move to a new area due to my job. Duringthis period, my commitment to working this problem through waschallenged several times. The breakdown of a close friendship with alovely Christian girl discouraged me greatly. It was clear that evenwith the best intentions, I was not ready for marriage.
Following this, I became very impressed by a homosexualrelationship between two Christian men. The closeness, faithfulnessand spiritual quality of their friendship suggested a convincinglooking alternative that challenged my understanding of Scripture.
Only the faithful prayers of my Christian friends kept me fromlooking for a similar relationship. They realized it was vital for meto see the deception for myself. Ultimately it was the spiritualshallowness of the “gay” church that revealed to me the deceptionoffered.
However, the greatest lesson I learned from my “gay Christian”friends was the value of the deep friendship they obviously had.Clearly the quality of their relationship had been profoundly healingin their lives. But I saw that their acceptance of sexual union as”valid” undermined their spiritual life.
I knew that my problems were caused by deep unmet emotional needsfrom early childhood. God showed me that if I could be honest andopen about my feelings with a few genuine Christian friends, He couldrebuild and mature those emotions through close same-sex friendships,something I had so lacked in my childhood.
Trusting in the goodness and mercy of God, accepting Hisprohibition of sex outside marriage, and walking with integrityproved to be the framework in which God provided really close anddemonstrative, yet pure, same-sex relationships.
I moved to a new church in 1980, and God quickly provided anexceptional group of Christian friends around me, with whom I prayedon a regular basis. They were genuinely committed to me, and I wasable to share in depth the problems I was struggling with.
When the Lord provided an especially close friendship with myroommate Chris, we determined to be accountable to our prayer groupto avoid getting into trouble. Chris had experienced homosexuality inhis early twenties, but had later made a successful relationship witha woman. He had completely put homosexuality behind him and was notafraid of it, unlike most “straight” guys.
As a Christian brother, his warm and affectionate nature graduallybroke down many of the chronic fears I had of getting close to othermen. It seems amazing that such a close relationship as I enjoyedwith Chris could remain pure. I would not have believed it possibleif God had not proved it in my experience.
Fortunately, the men in our prayer group had the faith to believeGod was in this friendship. We were pioneers and had to be preparedto take the responsibility if things went wrong. But I learned thatwhen we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, we can walk with God inpurity without being ruled by fear.
Just as Chris ministered to me, I was able to encourage him. Hestruggled with fear in his job and the financial responsibilitiesthat marriage would bring. These were areas I could really help himwith, which was valuable preparation for his marriage a couple ofyears later.
Chris’ committed friendship did much to heal me of the image ofGod as a demanding and uncaring tyrant. Through him, I experiencedsome of the tenderness and love that reflects the true character ofGod.
Today I am able to walk free of the struggle with homosexuality,experiencing a good relationship with God and able to relate wellwith men and women. Chris and his lovely wife Ruth continue to be avaluable support to me. Although there is still more healing to bedone, I can live a celibate life without the miserable frustrationand difficulty of the past. In God’s timing I hope to be married, butam content to wait until God knows I am ready.
Over the years, the most discouraging thing for me was constantlygoing round and round in circles as I sought God for an answer to myhomosexuality. The Church had nothing to say to the Christian withthis problem. All they could offer me was their fears that I wouldfall into immorality if I risked getting close to anyone; they hadlittle faith that God could change me. I do not really blame them. Itwas my responsibility to seek the Lord’s answer to the problems, andI found the way through Jesus Christ.
In the end, I had to stop fearing the opinions of others and breakout of the limitations of our Western culture that so influences ourconcept of relationships in the Church today. We have beensystematically robbed of the kind of love clearly exalted in theScriptures, seen in the friendships between David and Jonathan, Ruthand Naomi, Jesus and John. Satan’s strategy is to interpret what isgood and God-given as something perverse, while exalting the immoraland perverted as the “answer” to our problems.
As the disciples of Christ, we need to see what the Devil hasdone. We must learn to trust in the goodness of God, and walk in thelight with one another, so that the needs of hurting people can bemet and healed. Then we can once again fulfil the calling of Jesus tobe the light of the world and to bring good news to all people livingin darkness and fear.
God has worked all these things together for good in my life. Theyears of frustration and misery have borne good fruit, equipping meto help show the way out of homosexuality to others in similar need.Praise God!
Jeremy Marks trained with Love In Action’s leadershiptraining program and now directs Courage Ministries in London,England with his wife, Bren. Distributed by Love In Action, PO Box753307, Memphis, TN 38175-3307; 901/542-0250