Looking For Love – What Should Your Part Be?

Portions of this poem describe me (my life, rejection by the church, etc.). I didn't write it, but I did edit it and add a few stanzas. As you read, please consider what love from the church may have meant in this young man's (and my) life. Then consider what your part, as a Christian, should be now.

Looking for Love - author unknown (Edited from a reading on January 17, 1993 by James Ryle, Pastor, Vineyard Bible Fellowship-Boulder Valley, Longmont, CO in his message Healing For The Homosexual, the second message in a three tape series entitled Homosexuality: A Time To Speak)

There was a boy who never knew the love a father gives, raised by his mom in anger for the man who left his kids. The moment came in growing up when gates were open wide, and the boy whose heart was wounded walked to the other side. His appetite for nurture to be given by a man, had been left an empty vacuum as he roamed about the land. No love at home and some abuse, no men to guide him home. At home, at church, where e'er he went he was always all alone. Accepted Christ when very young, he looked for help from church, but with all the rhetoric and scorn, they left him in a lurch. In secrecy he longed for love his desires, he did not tell, in fear church would reject him saying "Young man, you'll go to hell." He stroked himself in closets hidden from the light, but it never satisfied him so he wandered into night. So looking for any man who would make him feel complete, he gave himself to do such things that some would never speak. He always lived with hope that love would someday heal, but years of ridicule and hate left him broken, feeling ill. Dying for affection which he longed for from a man, he turned to help from others hoping they would understand. Instead they told him, "Sodom!, burn!" for such things he has done. "How could you hurt your family so? You're such a sorry son." Angered and in desperate pain that results from all the hurts, the lad now had disdainful thoughts for policies of church. Trust, lost observing "Godly" men, is remembered from the past. "Can I trust Christians to love me? No! There is none that will last." So, he bound himself in common cause with others such as he, who had suffered long the anguish of their public mockery. The lack of love, by Christian men, only gave them cause, so in defiance they decided "To hell with hateful laws." In hope they'd find some peace and love instead evolved a war. In a nation birthed for tolerance these men are now abhorred. And a boy who never knew the love and kindness of a father, died a victim of disease alone, with no one who would bother. The answer to this problem lies within the heart of those truly filled with Christ's compassion for the travelers on the road. You can heal our wounded bodies and restore our broken hearts, if you'll only stop from judging us for how we fell apart. The little boy, love never knew and yet became a man, can feel the love of Christ in YOU, if you'll but touch his hand. Please help him to recover from the lonely desperation, for the love of God through you can give freedom from isolation. Loving arms and tender care will lead him to the Father. Salvation and the Christian walk can be his if YOU will bother.

Proverbs 18:21 (New American Standard Bible)
"Death and life are in the power of the tongue…"

Matthew 16:19 (New American Standard Bible)
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

Whether or not you are aware of the situation, there are likely gay persons sitting in your congregation. What are your words and actions toward the gay issue telling those individuals, young and old alike? Are you speaking death and binding them into a life without hope or are you speaking life and setting them free to find righteousness, peace and joy in the Loving arms of the Savior? How many people will you drive out of your church and ministry? How many suicides will result from gay persons not finding the Love of Christ in the only place they know to look?