Dear God, my soul is disquieted this morning. It’s over the LGTBQ+ issue and your feelings about it. But I have to tell you, even now as I sit here in your presence and talk to you about this, I can feel the disquietedness dripping away. I can feel your peace rising up in me.

It started this morning with a video I was watching by two Christian men talking about a conference a Christian mega church did largely for parents and pastors knowing how to respond to LGTBQ+ children/youth. I didn’t so much disagree with them in principle as I wondered how I should feel about my family, friends, and others in my sphere of influence who identify in some non-traditional way. I also wonder one key question. Why? There are reasons for your laws. There are reasons you want us to avoid drunkeness, murder, gluttony, lying, stealing, etc. There is harm for us in these things.

Then I ask myself, how many of those who are hyper-focused on this issue are obese, look at pornography, lie regularly, etc. And what about me? What is the unconfessed sin in my life that I’m not aware of because I don’t think it’s a sin. I’ve had a vasectomy. Some Christians would call that sin. Do you call it sin? Is it something on the f*** you list you have for me that, thankfully, you cannot see because of Jesus’s blood?

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I think all of us have sin in our lives that we do not recognize as sin. The obese Christian (and I’m not too thin, so I’ll throw myself in this category) who gives in to gluttony. The alcoholic Christian who continues to drink to excess. I’m not here to label what is sin and what isn’t. I’m too ignorant to know. But I do know that you want your best for me, and I can only figure out what that is through moments like this. I can only figure it out as I work out my faith with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13). My goal for any friend/family member, whether they be straight, LGTBQ+, gluttonous, an adulterer, a liar, a thief, etc., is that we would all take you seriously, accept the grace Jesus provides through his amazing sacrifice and the power exhibited in him as part of my Triune God, and then work to cultivate our hearts to clear the rocks and the thorns (Matthew 13:1-23) so that we can provide you good soil in which you can grow and exhibit your fruits in our lives.

I pray all of this under your authority and grace,

Amen