I am going to continue using the analogy of our lives being a house that we bring to God when we first turn to him.
If you are going to remodel something or even build it from the ground up, the first step in the process is planning out what you are going to do step by step. It is at this point that detailed plans are drawn up, often by architects, showing what the finished product is going to be. It will contain what materials will be used, what quantity will be needed. Every phase of the project will be documented, from the demo to the last coat of paint. This is done so that anyone who is working on the project can look at them and know what to do next.
Let me share an experience I had with God years before I came into the program.
When I was in the Navy, I was stationed at the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake. It is on the eastern side of the Sierras, on Hwy 395 I started to attend a church that was charismatic, and it was there that I was introduced to the concept that God wanted to have a personal relationship with me. I was honest with them about my attractions, and yet they accepted and welcomed me. One of the pastors and his wife really took me under their wing, as it were, opening their home to me. I would often do yard work for Barney, as he worked full-time and did full-time pastoring. One afternoon, I had flooded a raised flower bed in order to soften the ground to pull the Bermuda grass that was growing in it. As I was working on my knees, I was also praying to God about my SSA. At one point I became very emotional and started to cry. I had grabbed the grass with both hands as I told God, “I don’t care what you have to do, just take this from me.” As I said that I pulled up a huge clod of dirt, held together by the roots of the grass. I looked down at the hole it left, and as I did the Lord spoke to me saying, “That is what I would have to do to you, if I did to you, what you want me to, the way you want me to do it.” I understand now that this experience was meant to encourage me to trust God fully, but at the time I was unable to see past the pain my attractions created in me.
One of the most difficult lessons that I have had to learn in my walk with God, is to do what Proverbs 3:5 says to do: Quit trying to figure things out and simply trust Him. When I came into the program, there were issues in my life that I wanted to prioritize when it came to the changes that I wanted God to make. I was not alone, and it was a source of frustration for many of us when God started to work on other areas of our lives, seemingly ignoring our prayers to start dealing with what we felt was of first importance.
To my amazement, one of the top priorities God had for me was to change how I expressed myself verbally to others. I prefer you to just come out and say what you want to say rather than beat around the bush. Predictably, that is how I would treat others. Almost from day one, I was constantly being called out by others in the house for how I spoke. I can remember going to God and saying something along the lines of, “What does how I speak to others have anything to do with why that I came here? I came to lose my attractions to other men, not to learn to be Miss Manners!”
As a result of the constant feedback to me, I learned to stop and rephrase what I was going to say so that the person I was speaking to could receive it. Once I became a house leader and had to speak into the lives of men, many of whom were deeply hurt by those in authority over them, I understood why God had done what He did. I was much more effective as a house leader as a result of what He taught me. As a bonus, a great deal of the growth in my own life came about as a result of God using me to minister to others.
The principle I am trying to highlight through everything that I have written is this: We need to let God set the agenda and the timing in order for Him to bring about the deep changes that need to occur in us, in order to grow out of SSA. He is the architect that has the master plan. The reality is that because of the deep wounding and shame that many of us bring with us to God, we simply cannot see the forest for the trees, as it were. When I came into the program and my life started to change dramatically for the better, I began to berate myself for not doing it earlier. My perspective changed. As I watched others in the house begin to refuse to do what was required of them, I realized that they had not been brought to the point of complete brokenness, willing to surrender control of their lives completely to God, as I had been. I also realized that, had I come any earlier, I probably would be responding the same way they were. As I looked back over my life, I began to see how God had been working in me through everything that I had experienced, to loosen the deep roots of sin, shame, and self-hatred, so that when I finally came to the end of myself, He could bring about the change we both wanted, without leaving a gaping hole in my soul and spirit. In the darkest time in my life, when I could not see anything good happening, He was working to prepare me for what He had in store for me, years down the road.
I want to briefly share one more principle that I feel is important to practice when it comes to allowing God to do what He wants to do in your life. I confess that it is one that I still really, really struggle with even to this day. It is best summed up by Ecclesiastes 5:1-2, which says: “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.”
I am not knocking the importance of prayer, as it is a vital link with God. What I am saying is, that for those of us who are attempting to change deep-seated desires, we need to learn first to listen. As I have said, He will often begin to do things that, to the natural man, simply make no sense. Many times, I have missed what God was trying to do, because I was not paying attention to what the Spirit was saying to me. Thankfully, it does not mean that He allows us to lose out on what He is doing. But there have been many times that I have had to pull myself out of the rabbit hole I went down and start over on the path that I was meant to follow. We can save ourselves a lot of lost time if we learn to really listen to what God is saying to us before we act.