If you have read my memoir, Confessions, or heard me speak publicly, then you already know something about me—I don’t keep much hidden. I’ve learned the hard way that secrecy does not heal anyone, least of all me.
Part of that honesty means acknowledging something that still makes many Christians uncomfortable: I am a man who experiences attraction toward some other men.
I’m aware that for some readers, that sentence alone will be enough to close this article. For others, it will become something to discuss, speculate about, or even weaponize. That has happened far too many times before. Over the years, my past failures—and my ongoing commitment to honesty—have given some people ammunition to slander, exaggerate, and outright lie. Division is easier than understanding, especially in the church.
I am not writing this to defend myself. I am writing because truth matters—particularly when the subject is difficult, emotional, and often reduced to reactive rhetoric rather than careful thought.
I have wrestled with these attractions. I have repented of sin. And I seek to walk near the Lord Jesus Christ. This journey has caused me to ask questions I once avoided—questions about desire, identity, temptation, and the ways confusion takes root long before behavior ever appears.
Any wise person examines his own heart. And any honest soul eventually asks not only what he struggles with, but why.
The truth is, all of us carry disordered desires of one kind or another. They may differ in form, but not in origin. Every human heart bears the scars of the fall. We all wrestle with sin, and most of us carry private battles—struggles we hope no one ever discovers. That shared reality is what gives me the courage to ask a question that is rarely explored carefully or compassionately within the church:
Where does homosexuality come from within a person?
This is not a shallow question. It is a deep well—one that has filled countless books across the Christian marketplace. I do not pretend that a single article can exhaust the subject. But I do believe there are foundational truths that, if understood rightly, can replace condemnation with clarity and shame with hope.
The Holy Bible tells us that our struggle is not merely against flesh and blood. We have an enemy—Satan—who traffics in deception and distortion. The devil does not create human brokenness; however, he is skilled at exploiting it. He patiently twists God’s design, rarely all at once, incrementally—through unmet needs, emotional wounds, confusion about identity, distorted affection, and unresolved pangs. His aim is not simply to tempt behavior, but to fracture our understanding of who we are and who God is.
Where confusion is allowed to take root, emotions become unsettled. And when emotions drift away from truth, they begin to form beliefs—beliefs that can feel authentic, even inevitable, while still being grounded in a lie. This pattern is not unique to homosexuality. It is the very architecture of all temptation.
What eventually emerges is not merely a thought process, but a desire that feels natural, even though it ultimately runs contrary to God’s design. And when desire is mistaken for identity, the deception becomes far harder to see—and far more painful to untangle. That is why judgment never heals, and why understanding matters so deeply.
One of the most overlooked realities in this conversation is that confusion of desire rarely begins with desire itself. Long before anything becomes erotic, something deeper is often unsettled. Identity—questions of who I am, where I belong, how I am seen—can begin to fracture. A person may not have language for it, but there is often an ache for affirmation, connection, or mirroring that was never fully met in healthy ways.
This longing is not sinful. It is human.
But unmet hunger does not disappear. It searches for a substitute. And over time, emotional longing—especially in children still forming their sense of self—can become fused with desire. Wanting closeness slowly becomes confused with wanting possession. What begins as a craving for belonging can, over the years, take on a distorted, intimate form.
This is why many who struggle with homosexuality say, “I didn’t choose this.” And in an important sense, they are right. No one wakes up one morning and arbitrarily decides to redirect their desires. Desire develops. It takes shape over time. It grows in soil that was already disturbed.
When identity feels unclear, desire can slowly begin to answer the question, Who am I? And once desire begins carrying the weight of identity, separating the two becomes profoundly difficult.
Scripture warns us that Satan does not deceive in obvious ways. He is crafty. Deception rarely announces itself as a lie. More often, it whispers, This is who you really are. Over time, thoughts are layered with broken experiences, unresolved emotions, and repeated reinforcement. What once felt foreign begins to feel familiar. What once raised questions now feels self-evident.
And as confusion lingers, emotions reorient themselves around it. Soon, those emotions begin to shape what a person believes. This is not possession. It is persuasion—a long, patient campaign of reinterpretation until a person no longer feels tempted by a lie, but defined by it. At that point, any challenge to the desire feels like an attack on the self.
This is why harsh judgment is so destructive. It does not expose deception; it entrenches it. It convinces the struggling soul that truth is his enemy and that grace belongs only to those who never struggled. It drives people deeper into hiding and reinforces the lie: If this is what God’s people are like, then God Himself must be against me.
But that conclusion is not true.
The gospel of Jesus Christ tells a different story. Christ does not meet us by affirming every desire we feel. He meets us by telling us who we truly are—even when that truth cuts against what feels natural. And paradoxically, it is only there, at the intersection of truth and grace, that real freedom begins.
Grace does not mean God calls darkness light. It means He steps into the darkness with us and patiently leads us out.
This is where the church has often failed—not by holding to the truth, but by separating the truth from grace, as though the two were enemies rather than inseparable companions. Truth without grace wounds. Grace without truth deceives. But when they walk together, something beautiful happens: freedom becomes possible.
Homosexual desire, like every disordered desire, does not flourish because it is named. It flourishes because it is hidden. It feeds on confusion, secrecy, and isolation. But it begins to lose its power when it is brought into the light of honest understanding—where lies are identified, identity is clarified, and hope becomes personal rather than abstract.
Understanding is not the enemy of holiness. In many cases, it is the doorway to it.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
Part of that honesty means acknowledging something that still makes many Christians uncomfortable: I am a man who experiences attraction toward some other men.
I’m aware that for some readers, that sentence alone will be enough to close this article. For others, it will become something to discuss, speculate about, or even weaponize. That has happened far too many times before. Over the years, my past failures—and my ongoing commitment to honesty—have given some people ammunition to slander, exaggerate, and outright lie. Division is easier than understanding, especially in the church.
I am not writing this to defend myself. I am writing because truth matters—particularly when the subject is difficult, emotional, and often reduced to reactive rhetoric rather than careful thought.
I have wrestled with these attractions. I have repented of sin. And I seek to walk near the Lord Jesus Christ. This journey has caused me to ask questions I once avoided—questions about desire, identity, temptation, and the ways confusion takes root long before behavior ever appears.
Any wise person examines his own heart. And any honest soul eventually asks not only what he struggles with, but why.
The truth is, all of us carry disordered desires of one kind or another. They may differ in form, but not in origin. Every human heart bears the scars of the fall. We all wrestle with sin, and most of us carry private battles—struggles we hope no one ever discovers. That shared reality is what gives me the courage to ask a question that is rarely explored carefully or compassionately within the church:
Where does homosexuality come from within a person?
This is not a shallow question. It is a deep well—one that has filled countless books across the Christian marketplace. I do not pretend that a single article can exhaust the subject. But I do believe there are foundational truths that, if understood rightly, can replace condemnation with clarity and shame with hope.
The Holy Bible tells us that our struggle is not merely against flesh and blood. We have an enemy—Satan—who traffics in deception and distortion. The devil does not create human brokenness; however, he is skilled at exploiting it. He patiently twists God’s design, rarely all at once, incrementally—through unmet needs, emotional wounds, confusion about identity, distorted affection, and unresolved pangs. His aim is not simply to tempt behavior, but to fracture our understanding of who we are and who God is.
Where confusion is allowed to take root, emotions become unsettled. And when emotions drift away from truth, they begin to form beliefs—beliefs that can feel authentic, even inevitable, while still being grounded in a lie. This pattern is not unique to homosexuality. It is the very architecture of all temptation.
What eventually emerges is not merely a thought process, but a desire that feels natural, even though it ultimately runs contrary to God’s design. And when desire is mistaken for identity, the deception becomes far harder to see—and far more painful to untangle. That is why judgment never heals, and why understanding matters so deeply.
One of the most overlooked realities in this conversation is that confusion of desire rarely begins with desire itself. Long before anything becomes erotic, something deeper is often unsettled. Identity—questions of who I am, where I belong, how I am seen—can begin to fracture. A person may not have language for it, but there is often an ache for affirmation, connection, or mirroring that was never fully met in healthy ways.
This longing is not sinful. It is human.
But unmet hunger does not disappear. It searches for a substitute. And over time, emotional longing—especially in children still forming their sense of self—can become fused with desire. Wanting closeness slowly becomes confused with wanting possession. What begins as a craving for belonging can, over the years, take on a distorted, intimate form.
This is why many who struggle with homosexuality say, “I didn’t choose this.” And in an important sense, they are right. No one wakes up one morning and arbitrarily decides to redirect their desires. Desire develops. It takes shape over time. It grows in soil that was already disturbed.
When identity feels unclear, desire can slowly begin to answer the question, Who am I? And once desire begins carrying the weight of identity, separating the two becomes profoundly difficult.
Scripture warns us that Satan does not deceive in obvious ways. He is crafty. Deception rarely announces itself as a lie. More often, it whispers, This is who you really are. Over time, thoughts are layered with broken experiences, unresolved emotions, and repeated reinforcement. What once felt foreign begins to feel familiar. What once raised questions now feels self-evident.
And as confusion lingers, emotions reorient themselves around it. Soon, those emotions begin to shape what a person believes. This is not possession. It is persuasion—a long, patient campaign of reinterpretation until a person no longer feels tempted by a lie, but defined by it. At that point, any challenge to the desire feels like an attack on the self.
This is why harsh judgment is so destructive. It does not expose deception; it entrenches it. It convinces the struggling soul that truth is his enemy and that grace belongs only to those who never struggled. It drives people deeper into hiding and reinforces the lie: If this is what God’s people are like, then God Himself must be against me.
But that conclusion is not true.
The gospel of Jesus Christ tells a different story. Christ does not meet us by affirming every desire we feel. He meets us by telling us who we truly are—even when that truth cuts against what feels natural. And paradoxically, it is only there, at the intersection of truth and grace, that real freedom begins.
Grace does not mean God calls darkness light. It means He steps into the darkness with us and patiently leads us out.
This is where the church has often failed—not by holding to the truth, but by separating the truth from grace, as though the two were enemies rather than inseparable companions. Truth without grace wounds. Grace without truth deceives. But when they walk together, something beautiful happens: freedom becomes possible.
Homosexual desire, like every disordered desire, does not flourish because it is named. It flourishes because it is hidden. It feeds on confusion, secrecy, and isolation. But it begins to lose its power when it is brought into the light of honest understanding—where lies are identified, identity is clarified, and hope becomes personal rather than abstract.
Understanding is not the enemy of holiness. In many cases, it is the doorway to it.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
