My Faith Journey

Because my faith journey has been speckled by many different faiths and faith expressions, I also know that a person's religion does not define them. While I am a disciple of Jesus Christ by choice and a gay man by God's design, I hold to the belief that God is in control of the journey. Because of that, I hold to the tenet that your faith journey, and your religion of choice is distinctly personal to you and honor the choices you make in truth and love.

The reason for sharing my faith journey is to give you hope in yours. I pray my journey encourages you to strive for the best in the expectation that you are unconditionally loved by God, and by myself.

Shalom, Brett

My Early Years

In second grade, around the age of seven, I can remember standing on my front porch with the neighborhood kids when someone made a comment about a sweatshirt I was wearing. It was yellow with black letters and had the name of the company my father worked for. I remember feeling ashamed. I remember thinking, “How did they know?” I knew I was different, but how did they? I didn’t know the terms gay, or homosexual, or faggot, or queer (words that I would learn and hear later), but I knew I was different and I equated “different” with “not good”.

I came to accept Jesus Christ in my early twenties and tried to fit the mold of straight, white, corporate America.

I had a successful career in computers, owned a business with my significant other had the opportunity to visit many places throughout the United States as well as travel to Europe. Outwardly, things appeared that life was good, but none of this would fill the spiritual void as a primarily fundamental Christian and gay disciple of Jesus Christ. Because the Church condemned me, I condemned myself, and as a result, no person, place, or thing satisfied the emptiness I felt deep inside.

Today, I’m still different and still gay, but today I know that Christ loves me just as I am. Because of that, I know that God loves you unconditionally as well.

Seeing the crucified Christ

In July 2005, at the end of a long road of addiction and depression, in a drunk and drugged out moment of clarity, I feel on my knees and cried out to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, ashamed of the man I had become because of my drug use. In that instant, in that dark, deep, pain that nearly everyone experiences, I had a vision of Christ on the cross. I realized, that he not only felt my unbearable pain, but that he had felt the pain not only for myself, but for everyone who had lived, everyone who was living, and everyone who would be born. I could not fathom that amount of pain when compared to my own, and I recommitted my life to follow him.

I got into a twelve-step recovery program, of which I still participate in, I was accepted into a local seminary where I was pursuing both a Master of Divinity and Master of Education at the age of 46. I eventually chose to withdraw from seminary and concentrate on my Master of Education because that is were I felt God was calling me and I am using those tools in my Life and Recovery practice today. I now have a deeper faith and awareness of God's love for all God's children, regardless of circumstance.

Hearing God

Shortly after my getting into recovery, I was alone in my apartment, studying, when I heard God speak the words to me “A Prayer for the Believer’s”. The “hearing” was so loud, that I got up and physically looked for the person who spoke. It was an inner audible hearing that spoke to the very core of my being. Those words, where words I had written in my first bible over twenty years previously and were ones that I referred to often. They are the words listed in part 6 of my journey. They are the words of God, letting you know that no matter who you are or how you feel, God loves you with an immeasurable love shown by Jesus Christ.

Worshiping God and Serving Christ

Today, thanks to God and recovery, while some of the old feelings of worthlessness and lack of self-esteem arise and society still holds to the nature of prejudice, I know that I have a God who has never left me or forsaken me. I have a Savior who loves me unconditionally, and as I result, this love has transformed me into a man who loves himself more fully exactly as God intended, and in doing so, I am more able to love and accept others. The aching void of disbelief and rejection has been replaced by acceptance, patience, and tolerance for I no longer seek to prove my acceptance into the kingdom of God, merely live it.

More importantly, in this journey of faith, as belief turns to trust, my life has become fuller and deeper than I had ever thought imaginable. I give my thankfulness and gratitude to God, the Father, and Jesus Christ, His Son, for loving me until I learned to love myself and being patient with me as God grows me into a man of integrity and wisdom. I would be honored if you would come and join me in this discipleship journey of faith...

A Prayer for You

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge; that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:14-21

Experience God's Love Now

If you desire to know this love in the same manner that I now know to be true, I invite you to ask God to make his love for you known through Christ. Then, thank God for his love and grace and find a spiritual home that ministers to you in the way you are designed. That may be a church, another fellowship, or elsewhere. Find a spiritual home that meets your needs regardless of where it is or where it is housed.

If you choose to make a commitment or recommitment to Christ, it would be a privilege and a joy if you would share with me through e-mail so I may say a prayer of support and encouragement.

Shalom, Brett