The Father’s Heart on Homosexuality

Everything Beautiful in Its Time

I have been a big dreamer, adventurer, and wanderer since I was a little boy. From my first conscious moments growing up, when I was about three or four years old, everything in me has always curiously sought and excitedly pursued the proverbial clouds, while desiring to experience the grand and glorious presence of God based upon all the sights and wonders that I’ve been privileged to see.
To me, as a child, every aspect of God’s creation communicated a deep and unfailing love for humanity, an intimate bond and kinship that He seemed to share with all those who were conscious of His generous presence and love, reflected by His creative power. If you asked me how I knew this, I wouldn’t have an answer, but being deemed a prodigious child by church elders back then opened an even greater curiosity about God and all of His wondrous works.

As I look back at my childhood and upbringing, I’m not sure where this excitable, kill-the-fatted-calf spirit came from in terms of my parents and family line, but it has absolutely consumed me most of my life. And now at nearly fifty years old, I no longer see it as some youthful attitude or potential curse. It was a deepening bond of trust that I depended upon and that flourished when I sensed or responded to things that no one else even noticed. I am not exactly sure who told me that it was even possible to reach for the stars at such a young age, but I adopted that attitude very early in life; and now I realize that, without it, I would have never survived the earliest of life’s storms.

One day, in a vast field of beautifully swaying grass in Leavenworth, Kansas, during one of our frequent church outings in the summer, I wandered off from the picnic area down a very steep embankment to lie down in what appeared to be a feathery blanket of welcoming greenery. My young mind was so mesmerized by what appeared to be each blade of grass in melodious celebration and praise to the vastness of space by which it was contained.

I was such a precocious child, born with a proclivity to innocently adventure and seek out the voice within nature. That scene so enraptured me and overwhelmed my imagination with the glory of His might and power and the wonder of His person. The words that I heard were quite simple but life changing and profound: “Little Walter, I love you!” From that experience began my journey of faith and deep love for the Father, as I clearly heard the voice of God fill my tiny chest in an unexpected introduction and yielded my heart to the beauty of the scene—and to the always speaking and never failing Abba Father, whom I’ll serve all of my days because of His amazing love.

The unique fabric of our lives is often mysteriously wrought, and the patterns and processes we individually experience tend to communicate God’s providential work amid the many unexpected difficulties and tragedies we will all face before death. But as I’m starting to wise up and mature in the walk of faith, I can finally see the forest for the trees, and the things to which I was previously blind have now become much clearer and more pronounced than the beauty of that moment I enjoyed as a young child—hearing my heavenly Father’s voice grow stronger and stronger over time till it totally consumed my being and governed my life.

Broken, with Purpose

On three separate occasions when I was around the ages of six, nine, and twelve years old, I experienced molestation at the hands of older teenage girls. In each situation, varying degrees of unwanted violations of my person occurred, all forcefully advanced and really scary as I remember them now over thirty years later. Had my encounters with God just a few years earlier not happened, I’m not sure that I would have become the person that I am today. But I know now that, without that experience—His calming voice, His loving arms, and His amazing grace there to lead me on—the tragic loss of my innocence through molestation in my elementary years would have potentially destroyed my life.

I am now learning to behold God’s wondrous works more, even when I can’t trace His hand. As the scriptures promise, “He will make everything beautiful in its time.”

When any of our lives intersect with brokenness or trauma from our childhoods, the introduction of confusing and painful experiences tends to reframe our way of seeing and responding to the everyday issues of life—sometimes marked by fears, feelings, and frustrations, which actually arrest us from certain progress until we’re able to face, confront, and overcome the challenges we’ve faced in the past.