I don't typically rant.

I have a homosexual friend.

"What?!"

Yes.  I have a homosexual friend.  And the hardest thing about having this homosexual friend is not that I have to pretend to be nice to him, because he's really a great guy.  The hardest thing is watching him be mistreated by 98% of the christians he knows.

My friend is a christian, a follower of Christ.  He actually outshines many of the believers that I know in kindness, generosity, love, friendship, evangelism, and many other things.  But it's really hard to be a believer when you can't rely on the support and companionship of a community of believers.  This friend is currently living a celibate life, but because he can't find the straight switch, he is alienated.  Who does he turn to?  He turns to the people that accept him and are willing to be involved in his life as much as he is willing to be involved in theirs.

For anyone thinking about being my friend.  First consider...I sin...often.  But I don't have to dwell on my sin.  When I turn my back on Christ for a moment, and then turn to follow Him again in repentance, I don't have a crowd of people throwing my past in my face, telling me how much of a sinner I am, unfit for the Kingdom.  No.  I know that my sin is not me; I am not a slave to my sin, it does not rule my life.  I live in the freedom of Christ's sacrifice, not my own good deeds.  I can only boast in Christ.

And what pisses me off is that a brother of mine is being driven to spend his time outside any community of believers.  It's lonely being an island; it's not the way Christianity works.  Alienation is a vicious cycle.  You drive him away, he develops extremely close attachments with the people that actually do accept him, and you drive him further away because you don't approve of his close attachments.

Be a friend, not a pharisee.  You just might save someone's life.

a history of brett

God pursues His people.  He pursued Israel, He pursues me.  And what makes that so much more amazing; I'm nothing special.

I don't know how much of our personalities we are born with; how much of who we will become is predetermined by genetics, but the way I learned to see the world (my worldview) seems to be largely environmental.  I was born into a fully-functioning, already established family; the fourth child.  My world instantly became what their world already was.  There was no void that needed to be filled, I learned to fit in.  The things that my young mind decided were important to my family became important to me.  From the onset God was pursuing me.

My family was religious.  That much was EASY to see.  For some reason my parents went out of their way to be obedient to God.  We attended a church called the Worldwide Church of God and attempted, along with the rest of the church, to follow a number of the bible's old testament statutes.  We attended gatherings during the feast of tabernacles, actively made Saturday our Sabbath, abstained from eating unclean foods like pork or shrimp, didn't celebrate Christmas (or other 'pagan' holidays), etc.  We traveled to the next county to attend a church that none of my friends, neighbors, or extended family attended.  If we weren't going to be able to attend church, my dad would host an impromptu family service during that week.  My family was religious.

And so, if nothing else, young Brett's mind was cemented with an importance placed upon following God.  Following God was important to my dad, important enough to set our family apart from most other families that I knew.  Following God became important to me.  BUT... my God was a God of rules and punishment.  I feared Him like I feared my dad.  I was determined to be good.