November 05, 2006

Someone Who Didn't Stop Learning

One of the biggest problems I believe we have in Christian leadership at this time is that leaders get to a point where they spend too much time teaching and not enough time learning. It is the exceptional leader who stays focused on learning.

Here is a piece by someone who learned an important lesson about life after he move into a position of leadership. Miguel A. De La Torre, director of the Justice and Peace Institute and a published author, wrote this piece about what he learned from his friend "Tommy" after Tommy came out to him.

Here's an excerpt:

"I agreed to be his spiritual partner in the struggle. We covenanted to pray together. We fasted. We cast out the demon of homosexuality.

If anyone ever truly wanted to be a heterosexual, if anyone ever truly wanted to stop finding men attractive, if anyone ever truly humbled himself before God to faithfully live a Christian life, it was Tommy.

Years went by, andow you know what? Tommy was still gay. Tommy did not change, but I did.

In a very real sense, Tommy taught me something important about God: either God lacked the power to save a willing believer from his sin, or maybe--just maybe--I have been taught to read the Bible through the eyes of homophobics, regardless of how loving they appeared."


A person with an open mind and open heart can always be taught important lessons about how God works in our lives.

We just have to listen.

1 comment:

  1. Miguel is a friend of mine. We went through the same learning process, but mine took longer.

    ReplyDelete