Help w/ Discerning Who I Am From Sin
Hi, my name's Chuck, and I was hoping to share an insecurity of mine that I've had since forever, in hopes that God may work through any of you to help me to resolve this.
Having grown up in a Baptist environment, I was taught that being gay is a sin, but ever since I was a teen, I noticed that I had genuine feelings of attraction to guys only... For context: I lean more toward the feminine side of things, and have always been drawn to very masculine men to complement my qualities. These feelings I have never really felt like something I could consciously choose—it feels natural to me, but maybe it isn't?
What scares me is that I was raised being taught that being gay is a choice and an abomination in God’s eyes, and that God created Adam and Eve as an example of what relationships ought to look like. Because of that, I keep wondering whether there’s something I’m not seeing—something about my sexuality that might genuinely be against God, even though to me it doesn’t feel like something I can chose.
I know God values our free will, and I don’t want to deliberately live in a way that dishonors Him. At the same time, I also know we live in a world where people can twist and propagandize just about anything, including God’s Word, and that makes it incredibly hard for me to know what to trust.
I'm afraid that maybe the devil is deceiving me by tricking me into believing that being gay isn't a choice. But then another part of me wonders if he's actually attacking me through the one's who taught me it's an abomination when it's not. All I know is I want an authentic relationship with God, and the only way I can think to meet him halfway is to just be single for the rest of my life; the alternative is to deceive a woman into thinking I like her, and I don't want that.
I’m not asking anyone here to simply tell me what I want to hear. I’m asking because I can't be the only one that has experianced this—trying to discern what is truly part of who you are, what is sin, and what comes from years of being exposed to homophobic rhetoric. I don't know what to do and I'm just praying that God may work through any of you to offer the guidance I need, as I know I'm not supposed to lean on my own understanding.
Thanks in advance, and may God bless each and every one of you on your own personal journeys!❤️