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Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
The Power of Remember
Join us as we dive into a conversation about the power of remembering in faith and recovery. In this episode, James Craig and Josh Glaser introduce the story of Alan Menninger, the founder of Regeneration Ministries. Alan's journey from sexual brokenness to miraculous transformation showcases the power of God’s intervention. We'll explore how remembering God's miracles in our own lives is vital to our recovery journeys and faith walks. Hear about the unexpected ways God moves, the importance of spiritual disciplines, and how we can hold onto hope and patience through the process.
ReMember: a night full of worship, art, dessert, stories of God’s goodness, and an opportunity to partner with Regeneration. We invite you to join us for our annual dessert Regeneration fundraiser. We’d love for you to join us, It will not be the same without you. RSVP here!
It’s that time of year! We are inviting YOU to our annual dessert banquet.This year we have something special planned to go with our theme "RE-MEMBER."
Join us to see, hear, and learn the beautiful ways God remembers details of our stories with us.
Saturday, April 12th DC/ Northern VA: Click this link for more information and to register.
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
There's a lot of reasons that you may listen to this podcast. It might be your sexual brokenness, it might be marriage difficulties or marriage falling apart, betrayal, but we want to unpack something that might not come up in your typical recovery work or your typical podcast about sexual integrity. We want to talk about remembering. Throughout scripture, there's these key moments where God tells his people to remember. Whether it's crossing the Jordan and building an Ebenezer, you know, a monument to remember, or whether it's Jesus saying do this in remembrance of me, we're called throughout scripture to remember it. I don't know about you all. I struggle to remember. I struggle to remember God's goodness. I struggle to remember so many of the good things he's done and I struggle to remember even, sometimes, the hard things or the bad things that I grew up with.
James Craig:God gave our team this year three words, and one of which is remember. This is a word that he's giving us to guide our ministry and actually it's going to be the theme of our upcoming banquets. So we want to do a short series on remembering and we want to start out the series by remembering the founding of regeneration. Many of you do not know the story of how we were founded. It's a miracle story. It's a story full of drama, full of overcoming sexual brokenness, restoring marriage. It's a story of Alan Mettinger, who founded our ministry, and so I'm James Craig, I'm one of the coaches here at Regeneration and I'm on with our executive director, josh Glazer. Josh, so glad that we could have this conversation today.
Josh Glaser:Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be here and I'm with you about remembering. It's like Josh, so glad that we could have this conversation today. Out this series, we're like, oh my gosh, like there really is important, important stuff here. And then also just on a personal kind of confessional groundwork I'm not good at remembering I, over and over again, I'm asking god for the same, like assurances, just like help me not be afraid, help me to trust you. Like I, I don't hold like memories of what God has done very well, so this is going to be. I mean so everything we're saying today or what we're doing this year is like I need to hear it, so I'm eager to get into it.
James Craig:So, josh, why don't you start us out by sharing some of the origin story of Alan and of how this ministry got started?
Josh Glaser:Yeah, so this is funny because I'm I don't know if I can show this without revealing my age a little bit but as the executive director, one of my jobs is to is to have the whole the origin story. Like that's part of what you do when you run a business or a nonprofit or a church is part of your responsibility is to hold like where, what, how did this place start? But the story that we're going to get into started when I was like two or three years old, so it goes way back but yeah, like.
Josh Glaser:So. Alan Mettinger was the guy who founded our ministry and for those of you who don't know, our ministry has been around since I, I, I I should look this up this is part, I don't remember, but it's like 81 or 82 or 83. Like that's when we became incorporated an official, you know 501c3 nonprofit, but the story goes way back before that. Alan grew up in Baltimore. He was a, you know, the normal kid in those days but he, around adolescence, started realizing that he had attractions to other guys. He was particularly drawn to like masculine men. He would share stories of like, yeah, I remember like going down to the firehouse near my home and just being enthralled with the firefighters because they were like the embodiment of men, even before he got to adolescence, and those attractions were kind of sexualized.
Josh Glaser:Before that he was just kind of, you know, drawn to that and he would speculate years later, was just kind of you know, drawn to that and he would speculate years later. I remember hearing hear him kind of say that he thinks that some of that came from his relationship with his own dad. His dad was struggling with depression and there wasn't a great connection there for for Alan, and so I think in some ways he, he, he came to believe that that some of that attraction towards men, even in that just kind of enamored with their masculinity as a young boy, was because he wasn't really experiencing that much at his home. In any case, yeah, he had same-sex attractions. This is before the time. So some of this is paradigm shifting for us, because in our day and age if you have attraction to the same sex, typically people just go right to. If you have attraction to the same sex, typically like people just go right to. Oh so you mean you're gay. But that was not the paradigm back then. Like people did not just make those associations.
James Craig:Um, was this pre-sexual revolution actually when he was an adolescent?
Josh Glaser:Gosh, yeah, I mean, it would have been probably kind of the in the midst of it, right? So, depending on on historically, if you put the sexual revolution kind of in the thirties and forties, fifties, when Kinsey's work was coming out, or later, you know, when the kind of the kind of exploded in the 60s Right.
Josh Glaser:Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, right. So I think for Alan it was. It was confusing. It was something he kept secret. There was no one around him talking about these things and he would say years later that he he never even considered the possibility of of living as a quote, unquote gay man, because it's just not what people did, and so it what. It did not seem like an option for him. It wasn't because of some you know, deep felt religious belief, it was just, you know, that's he. He was going to be a normal guy but he had the same sex direction. So anyway, I'm taking too long with the story Fast forward.
Josh Glaser:He ends up getting married to a childhood friend, willa, and they start having kids together. But as the pressures of life started weighing more on Alan, his homosexual desires increased and he started acting out secretly even within marriage. He was he'd drive down to DC and have anonymous sexual encounters with other men really dangerous stuff. He would share stories of remembering waking up in a hotel room, kind of zonked out, after he'd been drinking and had just had sex with some guy and who he didn't know, and the guy had left and he was like man, he could have taken my wallet, he could have beaten me up. He could, and all sorts of stuff could happen.
Josh Glaser:So he knew these behaviors were risky. He knew that things were getting worse and worse for him, but he didn't know what to do until God got ahold of his life. So let me just pause there for a second. So I'm not just kind of you know, this isn't just a you. What do you hear in there that maybe stands out to you, or any questions about kind of some of some of what I've already started with?
James Craig:Really interesting that the danger didn't. Sometimes the danger doesn't deter. You know the behavior. Even though there's an inherent danger to random hookups or anonymous encounters, the danger didn't deter. There's something driving him that was so strong that, like it was overcoming the danger of disease or or harm or even being caught.
Josh Glaser:That's why finding out right, that's a great point. I mean, and I think for so many of us who have wrestled with sexual sin or wrestling like the negative consequences, we expect that, just the fact that there could be negative consequences, extreme negative consequences, we expect that they, they should be enough to convince us to stop. And they're not, and that can just heap shame upon what we're experiencing. And the more shame we experience, the more powerful the addictive cycle gets for us. And that was certainly true for Alan, although he had no idea about any of that at that point.
James Craig:And at this point does he have any sort of faith background? At this point, Did he grow up in some sort of Christian home?
Josh Glaser:I can't remember if he grew up in a Christian home or not, but at this point in his life as an adult guy he and his wife were a part of a, an Episcopal church, and he would have described he was not a Christian in in the sense that we would understand it he was. It was kind of more of a cultural thing that you know good people in his community did, and so he was. I think he was even, like you know, maybe on the finance committee or something he was. He worked at McCormick the spice company. He was a senior level accountant there and so he was doing well for himself in kind of the vocational world and yeah, and Sundays they would go to church. Although you know a vibrant life with Jesus, personal relationship with him was not something that Alan had ever been introduced to or thought was possible for him.
James Craig:Also strikes me that so many who struggle with sexual sin or unwanted sexual behavior even you know the impact of that in a marriage they look normal, they look like you know, they're showing up to work, they have maybe good jobs, they're showing up to church, and so it just reminds me that, like so many people that are around us in church I mean, if the statistics are correct, many people in nearly every church are dealing with stuff and it's just not always brought out into the light.
Josh Glaser:It sounds like part of balance story yeah, I think I think that's that has changed substantially in the last 40 some years. Like I mean, even even when I started regeneration in 1999 like confidentiality confidentiality is always important to us. We have a very firm confidentiality policy here. But even to be associated with regeneration like was kind of a, I mean it was a little more cloak and dagger. You know, like you know, we were like we would never add anybody to an email list. You know, I mean there were no email lists in 1990, but in any case, like you know, we want to make sure we're not sending somebody to somebody's house, because, man, if that letter shows up in your house and it's just a newsletter, it's not personal, but then suddenly it means you've got a sexual addiction or you're struggling with this or with that. What does that mean?
Josh Glaser:But today, I think so many people are more open about sexuality.
Josh Glaser:For right and for wrong, for good and for bad, sexuality is just such a common part of our lives and I think there are more and more Christians who really are open about the fact that they struggle sexually in some way or another, although I don't think that that's diminished the shame in all the ways that are really important and needful, yeah, so let me pick it up from there.
Josh Glaser:And, by the way, let me just throw this in there this is not going to fit anywhere else in the podcast, but if you want a mnemonic device, a way to remember to pray for regeneration and we could really use your prayers, because this work is certainly opposed spiritually and there's a lot that we believe God wants us to be doing or you want to pray for those who come here because man, like to walk in sexual integrity today is opposed. If you want something to remind you to pray, think McCormick Spice Company. Like, yes, the McCormick Spice Company. So when you reach for a spice salt, pepper, basil, garlic, whatever it is, whether it's McCormick or not like, let that remind you. Like, hey, regeneration. Like they started by this guy that had once worked at McCormick and, by the way, this podcast is not endorsed by McCormick nor is anything that's said here endorsed.
Josh Glaser:So it actually comes into the story a little bit later. So Alan's working there and he's got his buddy at work and I can't remember the friend's name, but he's also kind of a nominal Christian. At some point in the early seventies there's a Catholic charismatic renewal sweeping through Baltimore and this friend from work gets invited to a prayer meeting at this I think it was St Peter's or something church. He goes to it and encounters Jesus and he comes back and he's like Alan, you got to come with me to this prayer meeting. And Alan his initial thought is like no, he couldn't explain why, but he knew that if he had some kind of real religious experience, real encounter with God, that it would mean something about his same-sex attraction and same-sex behavior. And he wasn't sure what it would mean. But it scared him. So he was like, I think politely, was like no thanks or can't make it or whatever. But the guy wouldn't relent and asked him a few times and so finally Alan decides, okay, I'll go through this meeting, wouldn't relent and asked him a few times and so finally Alan decides, okay, I'll go through this meeting. So he goes to this meeting unlike anything he's ever been to before.
Josh Glaser:It's not like a Sunday morning Episcopal church service. There are people sharing testimonies about God moving in power in their lives. There's worship, there's prayer, it's vibrant. And so, in the basement of this church, alan's sitting in this metal, this metal chair, and he prays a what he would call a surrender prayer, something to the effect of not getting this perfectly right, but something to the effect of Jesus, my life is a mess and I don't know if you want me, but if you would have me and you can help me, then my life is yours. And there were no powerful, there was no lightning, there was no certain electricity. He didn't fall over. He didn't fall over. He didn't speak in tongues, there was no, and I'm not throwing shade on any of those things, but he didn't know that anything happened more than just that.
Josh Glaser:He goes home that night and goes to bed, wakes up the next morning, gets up, lights a cigarette, like he always did. He'd been smoking since age 12, which is about the same time that he started exploring stuff homosexually Smokes a cigarette, and the story goes he smokes a cigarette and, as he's putting it out, he's tamping down the ashes and he says to himself and he didn't know why he said it or why he believed it. He said to himself that's the last cigarette I'm ever going to smoke. And it was. And it wasn't like he was determined like I'm going to quit now. It was almost matter of fact, like it was an observation, like that's the last cigarette, and he never smoked again.
Josh Glaser:And then over the next couple of days he started recognizing that there are some other miracles that had happened for him. He actually, over the years, came to define it as three miracles, kind of all bundled into one. He didn't realize they were all bundled, but the first miracle was that he truly believed that he was a new creature. Something shifted in him, his perspective of the world, his idea of God. He'd opened the scriptures and he was like and before it just been boring to read and didn't make sense. And now he's like this is the word of God. He loved his quiet times, so he recognized he was a new creature in Christ and he experienced life differently from that vantage point.
Josh Glaser:The second thing is that he began to he had I guess this was in the first miracle, as that was the case, he felt some sense of this wall of protection came down, this protective wall he'd had since he was a kid that really kept him from being able to love people and be loved, and he describes feeling for the first time like he actually had love to give someone else. So he started feeling more tenderness towards his wife and towards his kids and towards the foster kid they had and other people in his life and he wanted to love. And, most especially, he felt this love for God and he wanted to love God. He started feeling sexual desire for his wife that he had never experienced before and it was a part of the love that he was feeling for her. It wasn't lust, it wasn't like this insatiable sexual addiction that he'd had in the same way before towards other men. It was a part of his love. He felt this sexual desire for her. He wanted to be close with her.
Josh Glaser:And the third one actually I messed this up, because the third one is the part about scripture Like scripture came alive to him in a way it never had before. And if you knew Alan like and you were ever to ask him like what's the most? Like I'm struggling with sexual integrity, like what's the most important thing I can do to help you know he would say, the most important thing you do is spend daily time with Jesus. And for Alan that was a miracle that God did and he recognized that other people struggled with that more than he did. But, like in the in the years that followed I think he missed like one or two mornings um spend time with Jesus and because he was in the hospital. But aside from that, like he loved spending time with Jesus and that was the third part of that miracle.
James Craig:So, wow, yeah man, there's so much there. One thing that strikes me as you talk about the quiet time piece, my lead pastor, john Lowe. He calls it FaceTime and he created that before Apple created FaceTime on our phones.
Josh Glaser:I was going to say he riffed on that. He was like kind of using it to say like okay.
James Craig:No, apple stole it. I think our churches owed money. But he talks about how, if we've spent all these years under these lies, all these years under a broken connection with fathers or father figures, how much are we going to need to have that kind of time, like that face time, face to face with the father who loves us? So that strikes me. But it also strikes me that Alan wanted to. There was something about God's love.
James Craig:I don't know so many of my clients, so that strikes me. But it also strikes me that Alan wanted to, like there was something about God's love. Like I don't know so many of my clients. They're like man, I really struggle with my quiet time. I don't really want to read the Bible, this and that, but I feel like I should. I remind them sometimes that this is a spiritual discipline. This is not like a I don't know, a makes you righteous kind of thing. It's a great spiritual discipline and Dallas Willard would say probably one of the absolute core ones is spending time in scripture and in prayer. But there's it's not driven by delight for for many of us. And so there's something about Alan being filled with the love of God that he actually wanted to spend time with his heavenly father.
Josh Glaser:James, I love that you picked up on that.
Josh Glaser:That actually is vitally important for anybody who's wanting to practice spiritual disciplines as a part of their recovery journey, and we highly recommend it.
Josh Glaser:There's something really important about how we picture God and how we experience God when we practice the disciplines.
Josh Glaser:And so if you have over your head like, hey, God expects me to have daily quiet times with him and he gets upset with me or irritated at me or whatever when I struggle to, or whatever it is, I mean, one of the things I would encourage people, if you're wrestling with spending daily time with the Lord, I would suggest to you that what's important for you to get after is what is your impression of how God approaches those times or how he feels about you in those times? So it's one thing to sit down with a father who loves you and who's been waiting all night long for you to wake up so he can see your face as your pastor says, like FaceTime, like and who can delight in you, and when you lift your your eyes to him, it's like you know a loving father seeing his, his toddler, and he's like, oh, it's so good that you're here, Like what's on your mind? Let's talk. I want to tell truth to you.
Josh Glaser:Like basking this, cause this is for you Like what, versus like the, the dour father who's like a little bit pissed off that you're bugging them and this better be good Cause I'm in, I'm really busy, you know like or or whatever it might be, I think.
Josh Glaser:And then when you find that you've got these kind of because we all do, we all have these these faulty views of God, like when you find you've got a view of God that is not consistent with the person of Jesus who gave himself for you, then that becomes a part of the conversation, not something to like just muscle you right through, but like Lord, I really want to be with you this morning but, man, like, I get this picture in my head of you like this and I don't want to practice that Like.
Josh Glaser:So, in other words, all I'd say, like if you sit down for a quiet time and that's the God you're praying to, you're praying to a dour faced, pissed off, doesn't have time for you God like it's probably better for you not to practice the spiritual discipline of quiet times, like you know, without working that out, because because now you're spending time basking in something that's not going to do your heart good and it's not glorifying God, because it's not who he is and I think you, picking up on that in Alan's story, james is so right.
Josh Glaser:Cause he, he and this is maybe another miracle for him Like he never got over in all the years I knew him, he never got over the miracle of what God did in his life and he always just it for him. It sat on him as this God of love who saved him as an, as a man who didn't deserve it, and didn't save him to work hard for him or to whatever, but like, saved him just because he loved him. And Helen never got over that. It was, I think, one of the things I loved the most about him.
James Craig:I want to come back to the wall in just a moment, cause that really, that also really stuck out. But one other thing about quiet times that strikes me. First of all, I'm in this theology of the body training right now. Our ministry loves being steeped in theology of the body, how our bodies point to the gospel, but Christopher West, who teaches it, says that we're all born heretics, and part of the Christian life is becoming less of a heretic, having more and more true thoughts about God, less and less false thoughts. But this idea of quiet time, though, is time. It's actually central to my recovery journey. I'm remembering this as we speak. That's why it's so good to remember.
James Craig:But when I first came to Regen, I was part of Awaken360, our year-round men's group. I was in a season of trying to figure out what God was like, and I had a lot, a lot, a lot of trouble getting in scripture, like I would just read passages. I'd feel often under condemnation. It was not a delight. It was not a delight to get into the word of God, with God.
James Craig:But one Sunday I was at a church and my pastor preached on the grace of quiet time, the grace of spending time with God, something about the grace and graciousness of God's character and something clicked.
James Craig:And from that day on for the last I don't know if it's been seven years or more I haven't struggled to at least want to get into scripture each day. So what's notable about that for me is like it's not that I always have this profound time in scripture or you know time where I feel really connected to God, but there's some sort of barrier was taken away, because there was grace deposited in my heart that God actually would meet me here in a gracious way. And that brings me back to this idea of the wall. So something in Alan's heart was like a wall erected, a mask, a protection, and God broke that down and it sounds like that wall was stopping both him from loving life, loving even the men he was tempted to lust after, which is an interesting thought loving, maybe, his children, others, but also receiving love, also receiving the love of God, receiving the love of others. Do you have any more insights on that wall or anything you want to riff on with that?
Josh Glaser:Yeah, you know, I mean I think, interestingly so, full disclosure to those listening, or James and I were talking about this a little bit beforehand that we do believe that God has. I mean, as we've been praying over the last year and a half like Lord, what are you leading us into right now and what do you have for us? This word remember has been a key part of it and we're still trying to discern why. And so, even as we do, this series we believe that we're talking about today is helpful for those in recovery and we'll unpack that a little bit more in a minute and we believe the other parts of the series will be helpful for you too. And we're also trying to explore, like, wait, why? So? But I do think, like like part of what, what happened for Alan? He, he did remember what Jesus had done, and I think, like some people and this doesn't happen for all of us, but those among us who have had a very radical conversion experience where life was headed one way and they're pretty sure they could follow the trail and go like, yep, I would have been dead or I would have been in prison, or I mean and Alan would say that I mean, like he he came to Christ right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and he's like, yep, I would have been dead. He's like I was doing everything that would lead to the death of my marriage, the destruction of reputation, the loss of my job and my physical death. And I think that because he had such a radical conversion and things shifted for him so much, it was easier for him to remember what God had done. And something remarkable and I think even as you were kind of reflecting in the beginning, these multiplates in scripture where God calls us to remember maybe two lenses, we could see that through one kind of the faulty lens of like you know, like I've already given you so much, like you know I'm not going to give you more, just remember what I've already done, like, which is not the tone of the gospel. I mean, paul even writes in the new Testament that since God has given us his only son so much, how much would he give us anything else? He's always given, he's already given us as much as he can. He's going to give us more Because the more has cost him so much less, right, I think, for Alan he'd received so much. I think it was that remembrance for him, gave him life and, I think, helped kind of fuel what he did. Let me share about that for a minute, because the Genesis of Regen actually starts about 10 years later.
Josh Glaser:Alan had early on really felt the Holy Spirit's prompting to confess to his wife, to tell her the truth about what had been going on, and he did not want to because things were so good finally between them. But he knew that God was telling him and so he did. He told her what was up, which was obviously like brutally painful for her. We didn't know it back then, they didn't know it, but I'm certain there was a level of trauma for her in discovering that the life that she thought she was living was different than what she'd been living. But over time their marriage healed and she could see the fruit and the evidence in his life that God really had done a miracle and he was a different man.
Josh Glaser:About nine or 10 years later Alan was in his living room and had read in the Baltimore Sun, the local paper here, an article about five men who'd been arrested in a public park for homosexual activity. They'd been acting out publicly as men did then and it was officially illegal then. So today that would be so on PC to say and and to be the reality. But that was the case back then. Alan knew that, that he could have easily been one of those men and. But when those men, when the men's names were printed in the paper, one of the men was a Baptist pastor who was married and had two kids Interestingly, alan had been married with two kids prior to his conversion when that pastor's name was printed in the paper, he killed himself out of just disgrace and shame and he was hopeless. And that prompted Alan to say I can't keep this to myself, I can't let this just be my story. If, if God can save me, he can save others too. And so he reached out to the other four men in the article, I think one of the men was like okay, I'll meet with you.
Josh Glaser:And then there was another man that the Mettinger's knew and they gathered in the Mettinger basement in 1980, whatever it was 81 or 82, 83 maybe and that was the first unofficial meeting of regeneration and things grew from there.
Josh Glaser:So I want to park there for a moment and say, if you haven't heard it already, I'm going to say it Alan Menninger, the founder of our ministry, was rescued because God miraculously shifted his sexual attractions, miraculously gave him new life, love and desire for his wife and his family. That doesn't always happen like that or as quickly as that, but it is possible and that is not PC, but it's the reality that miracles happen and it happened in Alan's life and that was the seed that germinated and eventually started this ministry, and now it's been what's the math, james? From 2025, back to 1983. We've been around for a long time, and not because we're so great like the fact that the fact that we're in this ministry and leading it now, like is another testament to god's grace, but yeah, so is another testament to God's grace, but yeah, so what do you do with that?
James Craig:That brings up a lot of. It can bring up a lot of pain for, whether it's same-sex attraction or opposite sex, you know, sexual behavior or whatever. I would guess that if you're listening to this, every single one of you has prayed, maybe thousands of times, like I had, and he didn't seem to answer those prayers. So what do we make of that, josh? Yeah, how do we reckon with that? God met him in this very subtle way, at this, in this church basement, and I love how, by the way, a few years later, it's in his basement that he's pouring out the waters that he received or the spear that he received. But, oh, great connection, yeah, yeah, like, what do we make of it when god doesn't answer that? And what's sorry? One more thing about that it's ironic that alan wasn't even necessarily praying for that, like he wasn't doing what I had done for 10 years, which is pray time and time again. Take this desire for porn away. Take this away, like god just met him without all that seeming groundwork of prayer yeah, yeah.
Josh Glaser:So two parts that to to my response to that three parts. The first is I don't. I don't entirely know. There is mystery here that god only knows. Secondly, while alan was not praying you're correct, I don't know of any I don't remember him ever talking about like, yep, he was praying that God would take this away.
Josh Glaser:His wife actually had, years before, gotten connected to a very powerful prayer warrior. This woman who she met at, I think. The woman came and spoke at their church, maybe to a women's thing at their church, but Willow was like man, her face was just bright, she was free and I knew that I wasn't and I wanted what she had. And so she went up to the woman and talked to her and the woman was like you know, come to my prayer group. And the and Willow was kind of like like Ruth, you know, like hey, wherever you go, I'm going to go, cause I I need something that you've got. Willow wasn't. She didn't know what was going on with Alan, and there's there's some stories that even suggest that she was just in denial, like she had some suspicions but didn't want to admit it because it just felt hopeless. But she was at least open enough with people in that prayer group to say my marriage needs prayer, my husband needs prayer. I don't know why, but we need prayer. So there were people praying for Alan and for Miracle before that, and people who were alive in prayer and who believed the power of the Holy spirit to to do miracles, so what they prayed, how they prayed, how long they prayed, I don't know. Um, but yeah, man.
Josh Glaser:And then the next answer is because it's true in our, in our, in our ministry, like and Alan actually dealt with this as somebody who ministered to other people who struggled as he did that sometimes people were just like you don't understand, because you haven't been through what I've been through I prayed and these attractions are still here. I prayed and I'm still acting out Like and that was something he had to contend with in his own testimony because he couldn't deny his testimony but he also recognized that it didn't happen that way for everybody. I mean my own story, you know, struggling with voyeurism and making illicit phone calls to people and looking at pornography and masturbation and fantasy and all sorts of stuff that I was so embarrassed by as a Christian young man, and I remember, like just shaking my fist at God in college, being like what is going on here, like I love you, you love me. Why don't you take this away from me? I know you can, why won't you? And I've certainly experienced miracles in this journey, but not the snap your fingers, like you know, surrender, prayer and all has changed, kind of miracle that Alan did and I and I and you and I have both worked with so many and walk with so many men and women who, who can testify like that's hard, it is hard.
Josh Glaser:I think it's also one of the reasons that that Alan. It was really important for Alan to recognize that it wasn't just one miracle. The sexual desire shift for him was, and the sexual behavior shift for him was was a miraculous part of it. But his love of the Lord was another miracle that took place and that was really important, that the wall that came down.
Josh Glaser:A lot of us have walls that we don't realize are a part of these problems. Alan, I don't even know that Alan could explain what that was for him and I think that that that matters for for a lot of us. And then and then his time with the Lord was another miracle. So so what are the miracles that God's doing that we can remember, like for me, one of the things that I remember that helps me is is my own conversion story. Like it didn't eradicate the sexual behavior in my life but it did change me in some other ways. And and it does my heart good to remember that, and it did my heart good in the midst of recovery, when I was still botching it and falling on my face with sexual integrity, to remember like, even so, like God called me, god saved me, god's with me.
James Craig:Yeah, my own story, when I experienced God's love in a really personal way in college. Love in a really personal way in college.
James Craig:It did take away my struggles for a month and then I yeah. So his love was so overwhelming. But the way I've processed in my own journey is that God had a longer term plan. He was answering my prayer in a much longer way than I would have ever wanted.
James Craig:But because of that, not only do I get to serve other men now and walk them through that journey which a lot of it, by the way, is maturity, which doesn't typically maybe ever happen overnight. That's not how God's designed maturity to work but also, yeah, there's just a grace in having had to go through hard things like this, because there's so many other parts of my faith that have been refined and strengthened. And had I never gone through this kind of addiction and recovery, I wouldn't have grown in spiritual formation, I wouldn't have fallen in love with the authors who point me to Jesus so thoroughly, I wouldn't have yeah, I wouldn't have grown just in so many different ways, which is actually grow is another one of our words for this year. So that's fun that that's coming in there, but.
James Craig:I would not have grown if God had kept me in that place of, okay, you had the conversion you're set. It actually happened again later that year for another month. It's crazy, there's a whole story to that, but but if God had kept me there I wouldn't have actually at least you know, not in the way I did gone through the maturity journey that I've had to go through. So it's actually been a blessing, and I say that with honor for the fact that it did not feel like a blessing and it does not feel like a blessing in the moment, and that's where patience, maybe, is so called for.
James Craig:But, josh, one thing I'm curious about is you said that Alan didn't assume everyone would have that miracle, but, if I also understand correctly, he did still struggle with attraction at time for other men. And can you expand on that a little bit? And whether it's same-sex or opposite-sex or just wherever, our desires are a little bit, you know, warped or twisted up? Like what do we do if, even if we have maybe had a miracle of growing in love for God and our spouse, but we're still wrestling? And does that mean that you know a more thorough thing can't happen? I don't know. Can you explore?
Josh Glaser:that a little bit. Yeah, that's really good. I appreciate what you're saying too, because I think Alan learned over time to be to try to be really articulate about where he experienced change, where he didn't, what still needed to grow he used that word growth too Um, especially around his own masculinity, his own sense of manhood, like he was very clear. Like I was an immature man. He's like I was kind of stunted and I never really learned to be a man. So, whatever age that was for him 30, 40, like he's, like I had to start growing up as a man, learning to love others, learning to give. The following year, within the next year and a half, he and Willie became pregnant, had their son, and Alan would talk about how I'm raising a son now and in some ways, as I'm raising him, I'm teaching him things that I'm having to learn, and so I have to be a step ahead of him. Incidentally, his son has said to me on more than one occasion he's like man if you want evidence that God can change people he's like I'm here, I exist. I wouldn't exist if not for the miracle that God did in my dad's life.
Josh Glaser:But yeah, alan did from time to time experience some temptations towards lust and, like a lot of us, his conversion for you. As a month, I think. He had multiple, multiple years of not experiencing any temptation and then, I don't know what it was, 15 years in he gave in to masturbation or something and fantasy and then kind of walked on from there. But his desire to be sexually active with other men was gone. He didn't feel temptation. From what I understand, he never felt temptation again to go out with another man.
Josh Glaser:But sometimes he did experience some same-sex attraction and some temptation towards lust. He'd also talk about how he was very careful to say my desire for my wife, my sexual desire for my wife, was ignited and real and true and consistent. That was new. But he didn't experience just a temptation to lust after women and he would say you know the idea that we that like, that we'd shift from having a lustful attraction to men to having a lustful attraction for women. He's like God's not in the business of like, doing a miracle and shifting our, our sin proclivities Like so good, yeah, he's like. And it makes me wonder even if, if, in the beginning, before sin came in, if if part of the way that God wired us was not sexual attraction to the other sex in general. But there might've even been when when humankind had full mastery over the desire, a sexual attraction, romantic attraction, that would have been ignited just for one person, your spouse. I don't know, that's conjecture, but that was more Alan's experience. Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm answering your question there.
James Craig:Yeah, well, no, it makes me think of, I mean, just the tension, even people who are walking this out, and this is one of the hardest things to walk out in our culture walking out, and if you fall back in, or, and if you fall, if you feel tempted, it doesn't define who you are. I mean there's a now and a not yet to the kingdom. Jesus came and he will come again, and we're in that in between where we're still prone to sin, we're still prone to wander, as that great hymn says it. Prone to wander, lord, I feel it. And so I just say the encouragement, because so often what we do with our desires is we allow them to be our identity.
James Craig:And one of the unique blessings of Alan's time as hard as it was and there were great injustices done to those with same-sex attraction and same-sex behavior, but was that there wasn't as much of that identity placed on desire, even for him to just be like, yeah, I'm acting out with them, but of course I'm going to, you know, get married and have kids. I mean, obviously there's a deep incongruity, there's that wall there, but like he didn't have the same temptation or even the same world, like the blast, the, you know the the airwaves just being filled with you are what you desire. Yeah thing, yeah, we have today.
Josh Glaser:We should probably do a series on that sometime because, like, especially if you, if you grew up kind of 2000s or later, maybe even 90s or later, it's such a it's so thick in our culture to believe that if you have same-sex attraction it means something about your identity, specifically that you're bisexual or gay or queer or something like that, that we don't remember that that's actually a social construct that has been added in recent years. I think it goes back to Freud and Freud's kind of view of what sexuality means about a person and what a person is, the role of sexual desire in the identity of personhood. But prior to that it wasn't thought that way. Anyway, there's a lot more we could say about that. That's really important. But I do think that some of Alan's ability to walk in freedom came from not holding his experiences and even the slight lingering of experience of temptation that he had. He did not let that define him. It didn't define him.
James Craig:You know, scripture says that it's not about us first loving God, it's about God first loving us. And we just want to say, as we're inviting you in this series, to remember the miracles of your life, to remember things that have been forgotten, that are good and are from God. Most of all, we want you to know that he remembers you, he hasn't forgotten you. Our theme a few years ago for our banquets was about Hagar and how, basically, the Lord saw Hagar. He didn't forget her. He didn't forget her, even though she was kind of forgotten or, you know, cast out by Abraham's family. The Lord remembered Alan. He didn't forget about him. He knew that he'd meet with him in that place, with that persistent colleague who said you know, you've got to come to this church basement with me.
James Craig:The Lord remembered Alan and the Lord remembers you. God remembers you, our listener, he hasn't forgotten you and God is not slow in the way we think of slowness. Scripture says so actually, josh, if you're willing to pray for both miracles. But also, I feel like there's this idea of patience that's coming to my mind that so many of us, in our limited, time-oriented, time-bound viewpoint of the world, it feels like God's doing nothing, when, in fact, he's been doing so much in the background, and so maybe we can pray for some of that patience as well yeah, if god calls us to remember, I mean the word remember itself is.
Josh Glaser:It is a time, a time focused word. And there there's a. I get the picture almost like a life preserver or a, a tether of some kind we are that remembering is a tethering of ourselves to the truth about who God is and what he's done, and what he's in our life and other people's life, and Alan's life, because of what he has in store, because the hope he has in store. So, yeah, I'd love to pray, father, thank you for Alan's life and the miracle you did in his life. And, lord, for those listening, whether they're listening with, with unbelief or desire, or tears of gratitude or or whatever else.
Josh Glaser:Lord, what's most important is what james said, that you, you remember them, you've not left them behind. You're not unaware of their struggles, their pain. Lord, you're fully aware of the miles and miles and miles they've walked. You're aware of the desert and the dry, parched ground that they're on. Lord, you're aware of the dangers and toils around them.
Josh Glaser:And, lord, there's not one utterance of prayer, whether an hour-sprinted prayer with faith or a desperate prayer or an angry prayer. Lord, you remember every word we've spoken. Lord, thank you for remembering us. Thank you that when we forget you, you remember us, and I pray, even right now, that that same true love that has you remembering us would pour out in a special way on everybody listening right now. God, your personal remembrance of this one and that one. God, we need you, we need your remembering of us to have more power than our capacity to remember what you've done and who you are. And, lord, we need you to share your memory with us that we too would remember. Lord, thank you. We pray all these things in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
James Craig:Amen.
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