DEAR BOUNDLESS ANSWERS

First I just want to say that I read your articles all the time and listen to the podcasts and they have really helped me in my Christian walk. The advice that you offer is invaluable to young adults like me who need valid Bible-based guidance in our lives.

I have been dating a guy from my church for about 6 months and he is amazing. I've known him for two years; he's a strong Christian and very spiritually mature. He has followed the biblical guidelines for courtship — everything from asking my parents' permission to date me, to being very clear with defining our relationship and his goal of marriage. We are both always very honest with each other about our struggles and we try to hold one another accountable.

Before we started dating he told me that he has struggled with homosexual desires and he acted on some of these desires in the past. He very much wanted to be delivered from these homosexual thoughts and he talked with a very close minister about these past struggles. Recently he told me that the devil is attacking him with homosexual thoughts again and he has been very prayerful about being delivered from this struggle.

What can I do as a girlfriend to help him in his struggle? He HATES that he has these desires and he is very sincere about being delivered from this struggle. I have been praying about this, but what else can I do to proactively help him and stand by his side as he fights this sin in his life. We have talked seriously about marriage and I don't want this issue to cause major problems for us in the future.

REPLY

First I'll direct you to those who are dedicated to helping people just like you and your boyfriend.

For several years now Focus on the Family has conducted the "Love Won Out" conference to help people have a better and biblical understanding of same-sex attraction and how to address it. The conference features speakers whom I believe are the best experts on the issue, whose calling and specialty is helping those with same-sex attraction.

In addition to hearing from experts on this issue, each conference features powerful testimony from individuals who've been and who are where your boyfriend has been and is. It is not a conference for people looking for platitudes and pat answers. It dives in and addresses this issue head on. Get to this conference if you can. If it does for you two what it has done for others, it will be life changing. If you can't make it to the conference, check out the Web site and avail yourself to its resources.

Now, what can you do for him?

For starters, you do for him what you do for anyone: You keep pointing him to Christ, who "had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted." Only the power of God's Spirit through the life, death and resurrection of Christ offers hope for transformation.

The best way to point people to the amazing Savior is by loving God with every fiber of your being.

Stay with me here. You help your boyfriend by personally nurturing your own intimate, deep, heart-pounding passion for Christ. You get to know God, and how incredibly, unspeakably good He is. You develop an unshakeable faith. You learn to hear the voice of the Shepherd and you obey. You look to Christ, who works all things for good for those who love him and who are called according to his purpose, who is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

The best thing I can do for my wife, my kids, my friends, my fellow believers and anyone else is this: to know and love God with everything I've got. What better way to stir a thirst in those around me for the only One who truly satisfies than by my drinking deeply of the Almighty? That's the first thing you do.

Next, you build accountability into your relationship, and that runs both ways. You allow each other to ask hard questions about temptation, and you pray through these things together (here are some scriptures to pray through individually for each other and together). It would be a mistake to think that he is the only in this relationship who experiences temptation. You do too, so both of you need accountability.

In addition to holding each other accountable, you need outside accountability as well. An older couple would be great, but he definitely needs a male mentor who is willing to ask him the hard questions about his temptations, and spur him on to biblical manhood (which is a whole lot more than ordered sexual attraction). And you need the same regarding biblical womanhood.

Finally, you might come to a place where solid, biblical counseling is needed to help process and pray through issues that are unique to same-sex attraction. The "Love Won Out" conference would be a great help here, and also Exodus, a group dedicated to helping people discover freedom from same-sex attraction through the power of Jesus Christ. They could likely connect you with someone nearby who is equipped to walk you through this together.

I admire you both for having such authentic hearts and level heads in wading through such a tough issue. Right here is where the gospel — in all its infinite grace and power — brings life and hope for sinners like us. God is the God of Redemption, and should He lead the two of you into marriage, you can trust He will provide all the power and grace to make it a God-glorifying, Spirit-filled, Christ-exalting union. Keep us posted.

Blessings,
JOHN THOMAS

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If you have a question you'd like John to consider for this column, please send it to editor@boundless.org. Please note that all questions selected for "Boundless Answers" may be edited for clarity and privacy and become the property of Focus on the Family.