Caring for your teenage child who has Same-Sex Attraction, Part 4.

Biblical Encouragement.

As a parent, you need to understand when applying Scripture to your son or daughter’s life that the Bible is not a list of do’s and don’ts. It will be tempting to use Scripture in your marriage and towards their child as ways for her to avoid sin, and that’s it. However, what they need is Gospel depth and not shallow commands. Yuan comments that “a robust theology cannot be built on what we’re not allowed to do, for the Christian life is much more than the avoidance of sinful behavior.” You need to see that Scripture was created to change the heart, not the actions. Your child’s actions will flow from his heart. Proverbs 4:23 references that truth. Tripp says that “life flows out of the heart. Parenting cannot be concerned only with positive shaping influences; it must shepherd the heart. Life gushes forth from the heart.” Here are a few verses that can bring encouragement to you and your child: Romans 8:1 speaks of the fact that your son’s SSA does not condemn him because he is found in Christ. Matthew 19 says that those who leave family, friends, homes, and dreams will receive one hundred fold in this life and in the life to come. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says that your son is no longer known for his sexual sins, desires or temptations, but has been washed, sanctified and justified by Christ. Philippians 3:13, Isaiah 43:2, 1 Corinthians 10:13 states that when temptations, discouragements and doubts come in, and they will, God promises that he will uphold them and give them strength through their struggles and temptations. Psalms is an excellent guide to teach your daughter how to pray to God for help, how to wrestle through doubts and struggles and what a wise woman looks like. Psalms 1, 77 and 139 gives a picture of wisdom, struggling with envy of the world’s pursuit of sexual sin and learning that God is near to the hurting. You can walk through the book of Proverbs with your son about what wisdom looks like and how to avoid sexual sin. The first few chapters will be very beneficial for your son to meditate on. The hope is that over time your son begins to change more into Christ as he meditates and prays over Scripture. “When you grasp the fundamental nature of this change within you as a believer, you will begin to grasp your true potential. You are not the same as you once were. You have been forever changed. You no longer live under the weight of the law or the domination of sin.” Senkbeil writes about those who fail in simplifying the power that God’s Word has in transforming people’s hearts.

“There’s an unfortunate tendency, it seems to me, toward a minimalist understanding of God’s word, using it as a means to achieve a stated or implied goal. When the living and abiding word of God becomes just another instruction manual to attain a particular desired outcome, we shortchange God’s intended use. He is a God who both wounds and heals, who kills and makes alive. His word, like the rain and snow that waters the earth, never returns to him void, but accomplishes the goal for which he sends it forth.” 

You should encourage your son to seek the Lord, because he should believe that God’s grace pursues sinners, no matter what the struggle may be. God is not particular and is not embarrassed of His children. “The dynamics of human sinfulness and divine mercy and grace are the same for all of us, regardless of the particular temptations or weaknesses we face” (Hill) Richard Sibbes says that Christ “cherishes even the least beginnings.” God is faithful to draw back his children even at their weakest and most sinful. You should be encouraged by your son’s small attempts for seeking God. You should encourage your son to address his frustrations and complaints to God. Whether that’s shame, discouragement, anger, resentment, doubts, depression, sadness, fear, confusion, hopefulness, or love. People’s emotions change every day and so will your childs, and he needs to know how to be able to process them in a thoughtful way. 

Wesley Hill says that “homoerotic attraction is a ‘grievous affliction’ for those who experience it, and part of the grief is in the feeling that we are perpetually, hopelessly unsatisfying to God.” It is before God that your child may be most aware of his failure in sexual desire. Because for all sinners, it is before God where one has failed completely to satisfy His sexual standards, and this realization can bring shame and guilt upon anyone, if separated from the truths of the Gospel. In the end, the goal for you is to conform your son into the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). 

You need to help your child understand his own heart and desires. Matthew 15:19 states that it is out of the heart that all our sinful desires flow. You can show your son through Scripture what it is he is really wanting deep down when he desires a same sex relationship. Is it comfort, happiness, sex, companionship, a sense of wholeness, belonging, fear of loneliness, power, acceptance, redemption, meaning or purpose? Powlison says that “fear of man (and its partners, pride, and unbelief) is one of the core dislocations of our idolatrous hearts…it is a deeper and truer way to explain what motivates…than either the need for love or historical determinism.” It is not child’s past, his environment that is ultimately causing him to be attracted to men but his own idolatrous, sinful heart. Yuan confronts missing the heart and focusing on environmental causes by saying that “if our environment causes us to sin, then there’s no need for Jesus-all we need is a better environment. His death on the cross is then insufficient, and justification and sanctification depend on human effort…the sufficiency of Christ is on the line, which is no insignificant matter.” Shame could also be a large factor in your care for your son and being aware of this and being able to speak the truths of Scripture into your son’s heart will be very powerful. Ed Welch describes shame as having a “deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you. You feel exposed and humiliated.” Standing before a holy God, one cannot but feel exposed to the sin that is inside of them. Those with SSA feel it even more so and based on the fact that the culture in the church has often spoken hatefully towards those who are gay. This can add more shame and guilt to those struggling with SSA. “Guilt over homosexual sin, a nagging, unshakable feeling of being ‘damaged goods,’ a sense of being broken beyond repair-and therefore of being regularly, unavoidably displeasing to God-these all seem endemic to much homosexual Christian experience” (Hill) Your child needs to remember that it is the sinner that Jesus came for, not the righteous. His heart broke for the leper, the blind, the prostitutes, the tax-collectors. Not those who pretended that they had no need of a physician. Welch continues by says that “at the cross Jesus poured out his blood for his hard-hearted wife. With his blood he cleansed her, and we are beginning to understand that cleansing goes deeper than shame. It goes deep enough to make us new.” John 6:37 promises that Jesus will never cast out those who come to him for grace and help. This verse says that Jesus will “most certainly never, ever cast out” those who come to him.

 Hill, Wesley. Washed and Waiting.

 Powlison, David. Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture.

 Senkbeil, Harold L. The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart.

 Sibbes, Richard. The Bruised Reed.

Welch, Edward. Shame Interrupted.