To the 동대문 Victory Church, thank you for welcoming my wife 지현 last night. She had a good time!

She told me about the obstacles to spiritual and personal healing here in Korea and it saddened me. It also made me feel pity for Koreans and strengthened my desire to offer support to Koreans struggling with Same Sex Attractions. She told one of her church friends about Victory Church and its healing ministry and she was scoffed at. The attitude of the friend- which seems typical of Korean Christians in general- is that healing is meant to be achieved in a one-off miracle, predicated by a sudden drenching of the Holy Spirit. Anyone with inner damage is meant to pray like a Trappist monk and read their Bible 10 times… What’s common in all these problems is that they offer simple solutions to complex problems (dressed up, of course, with the cosmetics of spiritual language); they naively assume that problems just go away with the wave of a magic wand.

The thing about healing and deep wounds, as 형근목사 alluded to in his sermons, is that it doesn’t happen overnight. It can take a lifetime of hard slogging. Yes, God could do the magic wand solution if He wanted to (He actually did that with 지현 and her mother) but it’s the 1% exception rather than the 99% norm. Speaking for myself I’m glad that God has given me this issue because it a) lead me to Him in the first place and b) has kept me depending on Him. In the SSA book ‘Growth Into Manhood’ by Alan Medinger (a book that revolutionised my life) the author writes that God gives us these struggles so that we grow into maturity. If we were ‘zapped’ into full healing we wouldn’t appreciate the end result half as much; but going through the painful steps of growth and healing we can have a deeper love and dependence on our Father.

Years ago I was angry with God because He gave me this struggle; I wondered ‘why me?’ and ‘why this‘? ‘why can’t I struggle with gossip rather than homosexuality?’ But now I can see the wisdom in what He’s given me. I don’t necessarily like the struggle but it’s all for His glory and my benefit. Hebrews (히브리서) 12 is an apt reminder of why God does what He does with struggle in this life:


[3] For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. [4] You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. [5] And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: (한국말 12:3-11절 있다)

“ My son, do not despise the chastening of Yahweh
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
6 For whom Yahweh loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”

[7] If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? [8] But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. [9] Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? [10] For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. [11] Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

As I see it God is using our trials to make us like His son - we are works in progress, not finished products and the work of the Holy Spirit will not be finished until Jesus comes back again. God does all things for the good of those He loves and in our case it’s no different.

In John 9 Jesus met a blind man and healed him. People asked Jesus (9:1), “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” His answer was very revealing, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him“ (9:2). Like the blind man one of us are born gay but we have a struggle that is for the revealing of God’s power and might. It’s painful at the time but it will bring a crop of righteousness that will last an eternity. Let’s keep that in our hearts so we don’t lose heart and stumble

* victory님에 의해서 게시물 이동되었습니다 (2012-12-16 21:31)