Let’s be clear that being an individual doesn’t mean that you don’t need anyone. God intended for us to have a healthy degree of dependence on one another (Galatians 6:1-2). Being your own person doesn’t mean that you don’t take into account what others think; we should allow others the freedom to have their own thoughts and opinions. It doesn’t mean that you can make choices without considering how they affect others. Followers of Jesus should always take into consideration the interests of others (Philippians. 2:4).

Being your own person means that you conduct yourself on the basis of your own set of convictions, standards, and beliefs. You are open-minded, but not easily persuaded by what others think. Your tendency is to make decisions based on what you believe is good, right, and honoring to God, even if there is a risk of upsetting others.

To help you gauge the level of appropriate independence for a sound marriage, ask yourself the following questions: Do I believe that my opinions count for something, or do I consider them unimportant? Do I tend to make decisions and interact with people based on my convictions of what is best, or out of the fear of losing their friendship or experiencing their disapproval or anger?

Ask others whether they think of you as a strong or weak person. Do they notice that you hold your ground in conversations, or do they feel that you tend to concede too easily? Do they see you as a person who stands up for yourself appropriately, or do you allow people to control or take advantage of you? Do you come across as a person who can hold others accountable for their mistakes, or do they see you as one who too readily accepts blame when something goes wrong?

Everyone is afraid at times. However, those who are controlled by fear are susceptible to being used and controlled in a marriage. If you are afraid to speak your mind because you fear that others will get angry and disapprove, you are not independent enough to get married. You need to take the time to build the godly independence and strength necessary to stand for what you believe and against things that can destroy a marriage.

Christians are not called to be passive doormats. We know this because there were moments when Jesus exposed, questioned, and confronted people who were in the wrong (Matthew 23:13-33; John 18:19-23). Although you may not be strong enough now to get married, there is hope that in time you can be. You can find the strength and the freedom that is in Christ and begin relating confidently to others out of love and godly self-assurance instead of fear. Being confident before God as one guided by the Holy Spirit, you can mature to the point of making an ideal marriage partner who offers him or herself as a whole person — and also have the capacity to recognize the kind of mate God desires for you. What is vital for you if you have witnessed an abusive marriage is to have the wisdom to recognize and understand the harmful dynamics of such a marriage — and have the determination to avoid relationships with potential mates who demonstrate such dynamics.

The physical attractions you feel for men are real and, obviously at times, quite strong. It’s good that you are troubled by them. Your discontent is a sign that you have not accepted an identity as a “gay” man (See the ATQ article I Feel Same-Sex Attractions: Does This Mean I’m Gay?). It’s a sign that your heart is open to moving in a godly direction.

Generally, it’s a mistake to suppress your same-sex attractions in terms of trying to pretend they don’t exist. Driving the attractions underground will make them grow stronger. God wants us to be honest about ourselves (Psalm 51:6). It’s better to admit their presence and then try to understand and confront them.

Although some would have you believe there is a substantial body of scientific research connecting same-sex attractions to a biological or genetic cause, there is no credible evidence to support such a claim. If biological and genetic factors do exist, they fall under the same category as a “predisposition” to other biblically unjustifiable or self-destructive tendencies (violence, adultery, or addiction).

We know from listening to countless stories that same-sex attractions are largely the result of an unmet hunger (perceived or real) for love, connection, and identification with the same sex, particularly with one’s father or father figure. This hunger often became linked with sexual attraction around puberty. In many cases, incidents of sexual abuse by an older male, or sexual experimentation with a same-sex peer, were part of a context that reinforced the link between sex and the hunger for male love and acceptance.

What you need to understand is that for men who grew up under these circumstances, the desire for love and acceptance wasn’t met outside of some sort of sexual interaction. These experiences can mislead young boys into thinking that the only way to get the male love and acceptance they’re starving for is through sex. And therein lies the confusion that has deceived and trapped so many. Understanding how the attractions developed can start to clear up the confusion.

You can start to understand how your same-sex attractions developed by acknowledging your strong desire for male acceptance. With the assistance of an insightful counselor, you can begin sort through the confusing messages of sexual abuse and/or peer sexual contact. Armed with that new understanding, you can start to confront the confusion and gradually replace it with what is true. And the truth is that the only way to satisfy your need for male bonding is to open yourself up to close, non-sexual relationships with men.

Of course, opening yourself up to men in legitimate relationships is something you do little by little, and it won’t be easy. In many ways, and perhaps without even knowing it, you’ve likely worked to keep men at a safe distance. You may have put up self-protective walls because you are afraid of men rejecting you.

Let’s be honest. The pain of rejection can cut so deep that many vow never to put themselves in that position again. But if you can begin to take the risk and start to let down your guard in your relationships with men, you can connect with them in legitimate ways. Many men have found the opportunity to open up in a Christian men’s group run through their church or through a Christian ministry such as Exodus International. As you start to interact with other men and allow them to interact with you in healthy, non-sexual ways, the homosexual attraction may not go away entirely, but it will begin to lose its hold on your life. Connecting with men in non-sexual ways dispels the lie that the way to satisfy your hunger for male love is through sexual interaction.

Although physical, same-sex desires may never go away completely, they can be reduced to the point where they no longer control you. Even though you find yourself sexually attracted at times to other men, you can come to a point where you will want to turn away from this attraction because you’ll know it’s based on a misunderstanding of sexuality.

Many advocates for the homosexual lifestyle have suggested that the strong love between David and Jonathan indicated a homosexual relationship. They cite the following passage as proof of their claim:

“I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.” — 2 Samuel 1:26

There is no question that Jonathan and David’s love and loyalty ran deep (1 Samuel 18:1-3; 20:17), even though the friendship between these two men was an unlikely one. God rejected Saul (Jonathan’s father) as king and promised the throne to David and his descendants (1 Samuel 13:14; 15:23, 16:1-13). In spite of all this, Jonathan showed David a level of selfless support we rarely see. Even though he was in the position to be Israel’s next king, he graciously set aside his personal aspirations and never once questioned David as God’s choice to succeed his father as king.

David paid tribute to this unselfish, caring quality when he said that Jonathan’s love for him was “more wonderful than that of women.” David wasn’t implying a sexual relationship. He didn’t say that Jonathan’s love was greater than his love for women. He said it was greater than the love of women. He was simply stating that Jonathon’s love was so remarkable that it exceeded the kind of sacrificial love women are known to display towards their families.

There is no biblical account that shows even a hint of David and Jonathan sharing a homosexual relationship. Both men were married and had children. In fact, David was married to Jonathan’s sister, Michael (1 Samuel 18:20-27). Some have simply inserted a homosexual relationship into 2 Samuel 1:26 that did not exist. They have also made the false assumption that love equals sex.

The relationship between David and Jonathon demonstrates that two men can form deep bonds of love even though eroticism is the farthest thing from their minds.

Avoiding all anger is like turning off the electricity in your house so as to avoid the potential of being electrocuted. While anger suppression works to keep you safe, it also means there is a diminished emotional capacity to deeply enjoy life or to reach out to help others.

While avoidance is a healthy response to destructive anger, Christians often try to steer clear of any expression of anger. The assumption is that if we avoid all anger, then we at least will not be guilty of sinful anger. That kind of “all or nothing” thinking, however, reflects a refusal to honestly struggle with the complex issues of life that are intended to direct our attention toward God, who is righteously angered by sin. God calls us to be like Him in this world (1 John 4:17). And that means we must learn to handle anger well, not avoid it.

There are at least four basic reasons why Christians avoid expressions of anger.

First, some avoid expressing anger because of the fear of repeating the abuses of the past. We’ve all witnessed destructive anger. Many are haunted by memories of anger that destroyed relationships, and wounded hearts. Many grew up in homes torn apart by parents who often resorted to angry outbursts or threats to squelch opposition to their plans or opinions. Anger has fueled all kinds of abuse. It has been a devastating component in the epidemic of broken homes that litter the landscape of modern society.

While past scars remind us of the wounds inflicted by someone’s anger against us, we also regret our own unholy use of anger. Because of those painful memories, many have vowed to steer clear of any expression of anger because of the fear of falling back into the same destructive patterns of the past.

However, being controlled by a fear of repeating the past tends to stifle our capacity to live boldly in the present. Courage is what empowers action in the midst of fear and uncertainty. A person who lacks courage is often defensive and more committed to self-protection than loving engagement. They reason: ?If I don’t get angry with you, you can’t get angry with me. We’ll let by-gones be by-gones and pretend that everything’s okay.?

Second, we may avoid anger because we fear powerful emotion — passion. The expression of anger is a passionate response. Because we are people who strive for control, we fear anything that is so passionate that it seems to defy control. We feel more safe and secure when everything is (or at least seems to be) under control. For many Christians, expressing anger represents a loss of control, and that’s why it must be avoided. The reasoning works like this: ?I’m afraid of my anger. I’ve hurt others in my anger. They’ve hurt me in their anger. Anger is too volatile. I can’t control it so I must avoid it. If I avoid all anger, I won’t make the mistake of misusing it.?

Avoiding anger because of the fear of losing control reveals a fundamental commitment to doing things right and not behaving in a manner that can be criticized. However, it is presumptuous to assume that anyone can always handle anger correctly. The deceitfulness of our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) reminds us that we are hopelessly mired in our own selfish motives and cannot escape them any more than we can escape the earth’s gravitational pull.

Our fear of strong emotion catches us in a bind, for while we fear it, we also are drawn to it. We demand predictability but are quickly bored with it. We long for intensity in life, but in order to enjoy it, we must be willing to give up our control of relationships. Emotions like anger that can flare out of control are often too threatening for us to risk expressing so we tend to avoid them and settle for passionless predictability. In doing so, we seriously hamper our ability to respond in a healthy way with the full range of emotions that God has given to us.

Third, we sometimes avoid anger because we haven’t learned how to be angry about the things that God gets angry about. Many Christians grew up in homes where healthy anger was seldom observed. All anger was vilified and viewed as sin that needed to be confessed and avoided. We were taught that any display of anger was wrong — that we ?shouldn’t feel that way.? The message was clear whether it was verbalized or observed: Anger is unacceptable and intolerable. The threatened loss of relationships because of our anger served to ?keep us in line.?

By avoiding all anger, some Christians may feel they are honoring God, when in fact they are failing to obey His command to be angry but don’t sin (Ephesians 4:26). Anger and sin are not synonymous. While much of our anger is self-serving and sinful, the text makes a clear assumption that an expression of anger that serves God’s purposes is not sinful.

If we recognize a tendency in ourselves to refuse to get angry about anything, we must ask ourselves a painful question: Have we lost our sense of deep conviction about truth? God expresses tough words against those who claim to know Him and are committed to passionless mediocrity (Revelation 3:16).

Fourth, Christians avoid anger for fear of being characterized as angry people. Because Christians are often portrayed in the media as angry and narrow-minded, we tend to shy away from even healthy displays of anger. In an age where tolerance is heralded as the supreme standard of ?going along to get along,? standing against something or someone, even for good reasons, draws a crowd of critics. Even in the Christian community, anger is viewed more as a vice that must be avoided than a virtue to be cultivated. To boldly stand with conviction for God, means you must also be willing to stand against something (Romans 12:9) and expressing anger against something can be counter-cultural.

We must admit that Christians do mishandle anger. We’re often guilty of getting more angry about someone else’s sin than our own. However, the cure is not to ignore either. As Jesus taught us, we need to deal with the beam protruding from our own eye before we help (not condemn) our neighbor with the speck of sawdust clouding his or her vision (Matthew 7:3-5; Luke 6:41-42). Attempts at avoiding all anger simply push anger underground. While all seems pleasant on the surface, things underneath are constantly simmering and will eventually boil over into other areas of our lives. We may disguise it with words like ?frustration? or ?stress,? but the bottom line: Unacknowledged anger is making its presence felt.

Yes, it’s true that we have so much to be thankful for. After all, God has given us salvation, forgiveness, love, and the promise of future paradise. Still, somewhere deep inside, is a nagging gloom and we wonder if our faith is weak because we aren’t happier with our lives.

But the sorrow is there, not because we’re doing something wrong, but because we live in a broken world; a place where we can’t experience all God has to offer us. It’s a sign to us that we were made for heaven, for eternity with God.

The apostle Paul tells us that we were created for far better things than this world has to offer. He writes:

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22-23).

And then again, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:2-6:

“Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”

Sometimes the yearning for God is too deep for words. We struggle to be happy, but we know that this place is contaminated with a sense of brokenness and futility. Working harder, doing better, serving longer, won’t take the edge off our sorrow. It lingers. And it won’t go away until the day our redemption is complete. Even our highest accomplishments feel pointless after awhile. (Ecclesiastes 1:1-9). Nothing lasts here and nothing fully satisfies us.

The result of being claimed by God, but not yet living with Him, is sorrow. But not sorrow alone. It’s also mixed with anticipation. We eagerly anticipate being with our heavenly Father. We are cut off from our heavenly Father; not in a spiritual sense, but in the sense that, now, we can’t experience the total joy of living in His presence today. We’re adopted, but not yet living with our Abba Father. It’s like an abandoned child who’s been adopted but is still living in an orphanage, eagerly waiting for her new parents to embrace her and take her home. She lives with a yearning, a longing to be with her family. And so do we. We may not always be fully aware of how deeply we long for this, but we too anticipate being with our Father. The Holy Spirit comforts us, but until we’re fully redeemed, we live with an inner hunger that’s not completely satisfied.

For now, because of the discrepancy between God’s claim on us and living in a broken world, we’re frustrated, feeling out of sorts. This frustration, though, shouldn’t alarm us. It’s a sign of good things to come. When we realize that it’s natural to feel sad and dissatisfied and that we won’t be happy all the time, we can allow our groaning to be a sign of hope for great things to come, and we can allow it to draw us closer to our Lord. When we feel the groan of our soul, we can find comfort knowing that we will someday see our Lord and Savior face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

It’s the person who is oblivious to this alienation in nature and within us, this endless cycle of decay, who is in greater danger than the one who’s painfully aware of this separation from God. The unaware person sees this frustration as grounds for despair and he may live his life trying to quiet his groaning through sex, relationships, money, work, or any kind of pleasure. But he finds that there is nothing here on this earth that can reach down far enough into his soul and fulfill him. At that point he has a choice—to recognize his longing as a sign of better things to come, or deny the groaning in his heart and continue his futile effort to have paradise now.

It’s natural to feel unhappy from time to time. But this is good news, because this burden or groaning fuels our hope and lets us know that God intends to make everything right. It reminds us that nothing material in this world can satisfy us. God Himself satisfies us (Psalm 90:14; 103:2-5; 107:9). Given that fact, Christians can use their longings to draw them closer to God and further away from the flesh. God will free us from the slavery of corruption and completely restore us.

Let’s not stress over the pangs of loneliness and sadness when they invade our hearts, but let us have joy because we know that far better things are in store for us. Through the sufferings of this world, we become more like God’s son, Jesus (James 1:1-4).

God knows your pain. He knows your doubts and fears. He knows that you have difficulties and that you even question Him.

A follower of Christ named Paul (who wrote much of the Bible’s New Testament) also struggled with circumstances to the point of losing hope. In 2 Corinthians 1 , he told the church of Corinth that he had suffered greatly while in Asia. He said that he and a friend named Timothy were “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,so that we despaired even of life” (v.8). Paul too was in despair!

But the story does not end there. He went on to say that “this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God” (v.9).This emotional struggle, this hopelessness that Paul felt, caused him to rely on God even more. He saw more clearly how much he needed God through this dark hour in his life.

You may not be where Paul was when he wrote those words. You may be in the middle of a storm and you may be wondering if you are going to make it. You may even be questioning God’s presence in your life. Your story, however, like Paul’s, doesn’t have to end in despair. It is in the midst of the most desperate moments of your life that you too can call on the Lord and He will hear you.

Is it possible that instead of reaching out to the Lord, you have been using god-substitutes to avoid taking care of your real needs? Most of us do that from time to time. We find creative ways of drowning our sorrows and dulling our pain. We are often tempted to use sex, food, materialism, drugs, alcohol, shopping — anything to try and make the pain go away. When nothing seems to work, depression can set in. Depression is sometimes an internal decision to shut down and a refusal to deal with the difficult struggles of life. This kind of depression usually results from a series of failed attempts to deal with some painful circumstances or difficult relationships in one’s life. The feeling of a depressed person is often, “No matter how much I try, I am powerless to change the things that mean the most to me. I quit! Nothing works. I give up!” It is at this point that some think about ending their life. You are not alone in feeling as you do.

So how do we work through these deeply painful and frightening times? I believe it is when we admit that we are at the end and can’t make it on our own. God will comfort us in our grief, sorrow, and disappointments. He will reveal Himself to us and show us mercy ( Matthew 5:4,6 ).

Some experiences in your life may make you hesitant to reach out to the Lord for help. But, if you trust God with your pain, He can begin to show you that you have purpose and significance. You were created for a higher purpose, which is to worship your Creator and to find your hope and strength in Him.

If you continue to struggle with thoughts of suicide, seek help from a skilled counselor, your pastor, or a trusted friend. Your feelings may not change overnight, but you can begin to act in faith and take actions that will lead to a healthy perspective on life.