Less and less

Ultimately, I want to be respected.  I want people to look up to me and see how I'm dealing with my struggles and tell me how awesome I am and how they wish they could be like me.
(I'd feel a little stressed to actually continue living up to their expectations, but for the most part, I'd naturally enjoy the praise)

But what's the point?  So I look awesome now, but then what?  Am I living my life just so I can be praised and looked highly upon?

Our culture is driven so much by success, that it's hard to see anything else sometimes.  Sure, on the wayside, you see broken families, egotism, and neglected relationships, but that's the price one pays, after all.  And I don't just mean success in terms of one's career--I'm not at the point in my life to really see that yet--I really mean personality.  I want people to see me as a good person... to reflect Christ, sure, but in the end it's about me and how successful my personality has become.  I want everyone to want to care for me (and of course, do so) and to intensely desire to be with me because of who I am, and for them to find me interesting and funny.  I want to feel secure.

I want to be used by God.  But I want to be used by Him to give myself glory.  It's the funny way that sin twists our perceptions... when we think we're doing everything for God, but in the end, we just want to get all the praise for ourselves.

John 3:27-30 (NLT):

John [the Baptist] replied, "No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven.  You yourselves know how plainly I told you, 'I am not the Messiah.  I am only here to prepare the way for him.' It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the best man is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows.  Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success.  He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.

I stopped praying to be straight a long time ago.  Maybe once in a while, I might pray to be lifted of this burden, but even then, it's usually only half-heartedly.  Granted, being straight should not be the goal for anyone who is gay, bi, or somewhere in between.  The goal should be a desire of holy sexuality, a sexuality that honors God with his or her body.
Being straight, however, would probably make life much easier.
So is it that I don't believe God can answer prayers?  Well, not quite, because I've seen Him answer my prayer for Angela, at a time when I had already given up hope.  Plus, this is almost moot... His answering of my prayer is not bound by whether I truly believe He can or not.
I realize it's in part for my own desire for glory, and in part for my desire for God to be glorified.  I want Him to show so powerfully in my life, displaying the fact that I am so content in Him and His providence, that I don't need to pursue a same-sex relationship.  At the same time, though, I want people to praise me for being able to be God's tool, and I want them to honor me for it.

"He must become greater; I must become less." (John 3:30 NIV)
Hmm.

It reminds me of an analogy from John Piper that Jason Tarn told us, about magnifying by microscope vs. magnifying by telescope.

"So there are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.

When David says, "I will magnify God with thanksgiving," he does not mean: "I will make a small God look bigger than he is. He means: "I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is." We are not called to be microscopes, but telescopes. Christians are not called to be con-men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality, when they know the competitor's product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God."

To magnify God by telescope, Piper calls us to be thankful.

"At the root of all ingratitude is the love of one's own greatness. For genuine gratitude admits that we are beneficiaries of an unearned bequest; we are cripples leaning on the cross shaped crutch of Jesus Christ; we are paralytics living minute by minute in the iron lung of God's mercy; we are children asleep in heaven's stroller. Natural man hates to think of himself in these images: unworthy beneficiary, cripple, paralytic, child. They rob him of all his glory by giving it all to God. Therefore, while a man loves his own glory, and prizes his self-sufficiency, and hates to think of himself as sin-sick and helpless, he will never feel any genuine gratitude to the true God and so will never magnify God, but only himself.

. . .

The text [Psalm 69:30] goes on, "I will magnify God with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs." Why is that? Why does the offering of some expensive animal please God less than offering genuine thanks?"

Piper uses Psalm 50:9-14 as an answer, explaining, 

"One of the reasons God was not pleased with the offering of an ox or bull or goat was that the giver often thought that his gift was enriching God, was supplying some deficiency in God. But what seems like an act of love among men—meeting someone's needs—is an insult to God. "Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills." You can't give me a bull or an ox! They are already mine.

Here is man's self-exaltation again. Even in the practice of religion, he finds a way to preserve his status as giver, as self-sufficient benefactor. In the very act of worship, he belittles God by refusing to assume the part of a receiver, an undeserving and helpless beneficiary of mercy."

-desiringgod.org

And so, the point of life is to lose ourselves.  My sexuality and my ability to withstand the pressures of being with another guy sexually, aren't even gifts to give God, for He owns everything, and He was the one to give me that ability.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to withstand it. 

John the Baptist's disciples were telling him about Jesus, "Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptizing people.  And everybody is going to him instead of coming to us." (Jn 3:26)

He responds with, "No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven." (v. 27)

True gratitude.  Piper continues in his sermon, saying, "As an antidote to this arrogance in worship, God prescribes the opposite: "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanks!" Acknowledge God as the giver and accept the lowly status of receiver. This is what magnifies God. That's why the last verse of Psalm 50 (23) says, "He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me." So when David says in Psalm 51:17, "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise," he is simply describing the only sort of heart from which the sacrifice of genuine thanksgiving can flow. Until the stiffness of man's arrogant neck is broken and the hardness of his self-sufficient heart is softened, he will never be able to offer genuine thanks to the true God, and therefore will not magnify God but only himself."

All I can do is acknowledge His great providence and thus come to Him with a broken heart.  Only in Christianity does this happen.  I sometimes look at these verses with a slight skepticism, seeing how this could breed cult-like behavior in a belief of God, seeing if this could be man-made.  But if it is, then why is there no other religion that so boldly claims that we can't do anything for our salvation?  

God doesn't even want our sacrifices, He just wants our thanks for the everything He's done for us.  

And yet that can sometimes be the hardest thing to give.

"He must become greater; I must become less."