November 4, 2024 • 57 mins
Can Faith Change Your Sexual Orientation?
In this, the very first episode of "Stuff God Never Said," host Audrey Cauthen interviews Justin Bristol, who shares his powerful story of transformation. Justin talks about his journey from living a homosexual lifestyle to finding freedom, deliverance, and faith in Jesus Christ. He describes his struggles with identity, same-sex attraction, and the emptiness he felt despite outward success. Justin recounts pivotal moments, including a spiritual awakening during a wedding he was photographing and the support he received from his grandmother and spiritual family. This episode highlights the transformative power of faith in Jesus Christ and encourages listeners to reconsider their assumptions about identity and acceptance.
Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/stuffgodneversaid/
Justin Bristol:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1394400070
Email Us:
sup@StuffGodNeverSaid.com
Support the Podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/stuff-god-never-said--6381256/support
Timestamps:
Introduction and Content Warning 0:00
Guest Introduction 1:10
Testimony Overview 1:25
Justin's Early Experiences 2:35
Struggles with Identity 3:30
High School Realizations 4:16
College Experience 6:14
Hookup Culture 12:50
Moment of Realization 15:37
Role of Prayer and Support 18:33
Divine Intervention 19:10
The Parking Lot Experience 21:30
Meeting the Ministry Leader 22:24
Traveling with the Ministry 22:54
Desire to Return to College 23:30
Struggles with Identity 24:27
Disappointment with the Church 25:29
Popularity and Acceptance 26:30
First Same-Sex Encounter 27:20
Backsliding and Insecurities 28:21
God's Pursuit Amid Sin 30:17
Prayers for a Relationship 34:32
The Relationship's Challenges 37:44
God's Warning in the Relationship 39:04
Ending the Relationship 40:49
Pandemic and Career Shift 41:43
Living in Seattle 42:38
The Illusion of Fulfillment 43:26
Toxic Relationship Dynamics 44:49
Friendship and Betrayal 48:07
Divine Intervention 49:11
Concert and Realization 50:02
Fire Alarm Revelation 51:03
Breaking News Impact 52:54
Struggles with Identity 54:15
Transitioning Living Situations 55:00
Deliverance by God 56:00
In this, the very first episode of "Stuff God Never Said," host Audrey Cauthen interviews Justin Bristol, who shares his powerful story of transformation. Justin talks about his journey from living a homosexual lifestyle to finding freedom, deliverance, and faith in Jesus Christ. He describes his struggles with identity, same-sex attraction, and the emptiness he felt despite outward success. Justin recounts pivotal moments, including a spiritual awakening during a wedding he was photographing and the support he received from his grandmother and spiritual family. This episode highlights the transformative power of faith in Jesus Christ and encourages listeners to reconsider their assumptions about identity and acceptance.
Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/stuffgodneversaid/
Justin Bristol:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1394400070
Email Us:
sup@StuffGodNeverSaid.com
Support the Podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/stuff-god-never-said--6381256/support
Timestamps:
Introduction and Content Warning 0:00
Guest Introduction 1:10
Testimony Overview 1:25
Justin's Early Experiences 2:35
Struggles with Identity 3:30
High School Realizations 4:16
College Experience 6:14
Hookup Culture 12:50
Moment of Realization 15:37
Role of Prayer and Support 18:33
Divine Intervention 19:10
The Parking Lot Experience 21:30
Meeting the Ministry Leader 22:24
Traveling with the Ministry 22:54
Desire to Return to College 23:30
Struggles with Identity 24:27
Disappointment with the Church 25:29
Popularity and Acceptance 26:30
First Same-Sex Encounter 27:20
Backsliding and Insecurities 28:21
God's Pursuit Amid Sin 30:17
Prayers for a Relationship 34:32
The Relationship's Challenges 37:44
God's Warning in the Relationship 39:04
Ending the Relationship 40:49
Pandemic and Career Shift 41:43
Living in Seattle 42:38
The Illusion of Fulfillment 43:26
Toxic Relationship Dynamics 44:49
Friendship and Betrayal 48:07
Divine Intervention 49:11
Concert and Realization 50:02
Fire Alarm Revelation 51:03
Breaking News Impact 52:54
Struggles with Identity 54:15
Transitioning Living Situations 55:00
Deliverance by God 56:00
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Yeah.
(00:00):
I feel like that's one of those things that can really easily be twisted because as you
either struggle with it and you're ashamed or you don't struggle with it and you feel
like you can't speak into it because you don't struggle with it.
[Music]
Hello, thank you guys so much for being here today on Stuff God Never Said where we are
(00:22):
challenging assumptions and embracing the truth and love of Jesus Christ and who he is
and who his word says he is.
I'm your host Audrey Cauthen and I am so glad you're here.
Friends, we do want to give you a heads up that some of the content in this episode in
particular is of more mature content and sexual content.
(00:43):
So just be aware if you have a younger audience in the room with you or this is something that
you are struggling yourself with and you're not ready to hear it.
We just want you to be aware that there is some mature content in this episode.
Today on the very first episode of Stuff God Never Said we have with us Justin Bristol
who has an incredible testimony of transformation in Jesus Christ going from a homosexual lifestyle
(01:07):
to a life of freedom and love and passion in Jesus Christ.
So I am so glad you're here.
Thank you so much for being here.
It is such an honor to have you with us today.
For sure, thank you for inviting me.
I was so excited to record this with you and it's an honor to be here in such a privilege
to be your first guest.
Wow.
I was so excited.
I'm excited.
It's a win-win.
(01:27):
Yes, it is.
Yes.
All right.
So Justin, I came across a, I don't even know how or where it came from.
It's somehow came across.
My feed is sometime in the month of June on some social media platform that you shared this
incredible testimony of being delivered from your life of homosexuality.
And I don't know.
I, again, I don't know where it came from or who shared it, but I read it and it was,
(01:53):
it was detailed and it was so Jesus.
It was just permeated Holy Spirit through every single word and the things the Lord was speaking
to you, the fact that you were listening to what he was saying, how he kind of, I feel
like he, he hunted you down.
He was like, hey, I'm talking to you.
(02:16):
It's so much love and with so much grace.
And I, I would just love for you to, to share some of your testimony of how you, how you came
into the homosexual lifestyle, what that looked like in the seasons you, you were there and
then how God delivered you from that.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, so many people saw that testimony that I posted.
(02:40):
Yeah.
And it went viral.
I mean, all over the world, I was getting people from the UK, people from Australia, Iceland,
New Zealand, pop a New Guinea, Africa.
I mean, I was overwhelmed with joy, I don't know, I'm stressed out.
I was not expecting it to go that viral.
And I didn't do anything to like market that.
(03:00):
Yeah.
I just posted it because the Holy Spirit told me to post it.
And that's how we connected really, as you saw it.
I still don't even know how you saw it because we weren't even friends initially.
But back to your question, how did I get into the homosexual lifestyle?
I think I don't remember ever feeling like I was attracted to men or women.
(03:23):
I mean, we were just being a kid and just enjoying my childhood.
Yeah.
And it was right around and the years were a little off here.
Maybe four, maybe five.
I was in a situation where I know the little boy my same age basically molested me one night
at a sleepover.
(03:44):
And with that, that opened up a door to me being attracted sexually to guys.
And I think going through school like kindergarten all the way up to like fifth grade, I never explored
any of this stuff again.
It wasn't until I got to high school that all your friends are dating, all your friends
(04:06):
are like finding people to talk to and stuff like that that I began to realize, oh my gosh,
I am attracted to guys.
But I was hiding it inside like I'm not talking about this.
So I would try to just ignore this feeling, had a poor addiction as well that was going through
these entire years of my life.
There was a lot of family dynamics I'm skipping.
(04:28):
But just, you know, a lot of broken family stuff that also aided to just the breakdown of
my identity.
And then I was raised in a town that had a lot of racial issues, whites and blacks and
intermingling those.
So I battled growing up with my racial identity of being biracial because I'm half white, half
(04:49):
black.
And so combining all of those things together, you have a got a boy in high school that's
just like, I can't wait to get out of this hometown to explore my life.
And then the midst of all of this, I was still going to church.
My grandma would take me.
I was raised in a spirit field church.
I experienced God multiple times at youth camps.
(05:11):
Yeah.
And in the presence of weeping out of cry, like I loved Jesus this whole time.
I loved Jesus, but just had same sex attraction.
But the same sex attraction always led to a life of just sex.
And it doesn't matter if I would have married a man if it was within marriage or not within
marriage, I was just attracted to sex with men.
(05:34):
And so I couldn't get enough of it.
And I think a lot of that had to do with just how I was so stressed out I was a kid.
I feel like the sex was like healing the stress in the moment.
And I would run to that when I would get stressed that I would run to pornography.
Or if I was having identity issues or just self-imploding on myself, these outlets were
(05:56):
helping to get a small amount.
And so it wasn't until I graduated and got out of my hometown that I said, okay, I'm finally
going to explore being gay and see what this is like.
So that's really how I fully gave myself over to it.
Because I was ready to escape my crazy hometown really.
>> Yeah, yeah.
So then did you just go to college and do the party thing?
(06:19):
>> Well, I went to a Bible school.
I went to Liberty University in Virginia.
And I went there to experience the Lord.
And I wanted to grow in that and understand like, my faith, you can study anything at Liberty
and this isn't a nod at Liberty.
But when I was there, the enemy would just attract you to the right people.
(06:43):
>> Yeah.
>> And I'm getting attracted to the people that snuck off campus.
And they were all straight.
But I would sneak off with them.
And next thing I know I'm going to the local university in Virginia like James Madison
University, George Washington University.
I was going to frat parties, get in joint party and Liberty is so strict you had to lie
(07:04):
and say you're going somewhere and sign off and put someone's number.
So some of these people would lie and put their moms number down.
>> And their moms were like, okay.
>> No, the mom would lie.
For us.
>> Yes.
>> Well, when I snuck off to go to these parties, I cannot tell you when I would go to these
parties, some gay guy would find me at the parties.
(07:25):
It's like the enemy was like, let me bring you into this world fully.
And I would sneak off with them.
And I would go have intimate moments with them.
Sneak off my friends didn't know.
I think they kind of knew what was going on.
And I would lie and twist it and be like, because one of their friends will be a girl.
(07:45):
And I'm like, can you at like, we were the ones that went back to you.
So I would come back and lie and twist it because I was so embarrassed.
And I didn't want to touch people at my Christian university that I was battling with that because
of the embarrassment.
Because clearly, most evangelical Baptist, it was a Baptist university.
(08:05):
It was always, you're going to go to hell practicing that.
I never heard anyone ever say, but you can be delivered from that in Jesus.
So I just assumed, this is just my law in life.
I didn't know deliverance was an option.
Yeah.
>> Wow.
Yeah.
It's one of those things that can really easily be twisted because as you either struggle with
(08:28):
it and you're ashamed or you don't struggle with it and you feel like you can't speak
into it because you don't struggle with it.
So people like you, your boldness, your obedience, your walking Christ is going to, it's
going to have a massive ripple effect because I understand that.
I understand even if the pastors and the teachers and the whoever's at your university didn't
(08:56):
think, if you struggle with homosexuality, you're going to go to hell.
I mean, I thought that but they may also not have known they needed to say that isn't true.
You know what I mean?
So it's really, it's really powerful that you're sharing your story.
>> Yeah.
>> Extremely powerful.
>> I agree.
>> And I'm so proud of you.
>> Thank you.
(09:16):
>> There's the water to be your friend and watch this all happen.
One of the things you talked about was the enemy, I don't know if you use these words,
but targeting you, whether it was with, you would find people.
And I've had this thought even about drug addiction because I know a lot of times a drug addict.
(09:39):
You can go anywhere and you'll find a way.
You'll find the people who have what you want.
And I'm always like, I wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to find drugs.
But it's like the enemy knows what you're looking for.
And he finds a way to open those doors to that.
And even in your story, you go to a Christian college to seek the Lord and he's like, but look,
(10:01):
here's, I'm going to nudge you this way.
Just like one little yes, I'm going to nudge you this way towards that.
Have you experienced that repetitively in your life as almost like you have a target
kind of on your back through the enemies trying to nudge you one direction or another?
Yeah, there was definitely lots of moments when I was in the world.
(10:26):
Because I experienced God and I knew growing up my entire life, even in my adulthood, he
was always there.
And I would feel convicted.
I just wasn't doing these things that always enjoying it.
But there was times where I definitely knew the enemy had brought someone into my life.
Like I just knew it was just too perfect on the outside.
(10:49):
And this would always happen.
Like I could break up with a boyfriend and be like, no, I'm going to take some time to
be single.
And I would go out with some friends that night and someone would just find me at the bar.
And they were everything I wanted in a guy.
And next thing I know we're dating in two weeks.
It's like I never was single.
I was always hopping in and out of relationships.
And if I wasn't dating someone, I was hooking up, of course, until I dated someone.
(11:12):
But it's like the enemy always brought me what was the best for me in the world.
What would distract you?
What would distract you?
For sure.
And keep me feeding off of the enemy.
You know what I'm saying?
To keep me as one of his disobedient children like the Bible says.
And so, and it was always a luring.
But there was definitely lots of moments.
I definitely knew even when he was over like, gosh, this was definitely sent.
(11:36):
It's from the enemy for me.
But because I was so hungry or desperate to be a guy, I mean, married to a guy, I didn't
care.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I still want it, what I wanted.
Yeah.
Because sin is pleasurable for a season.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
(11:56):
Yeah.
You chase these things down and they feed you temporarily.
Yeah.
Until God found their breaks in and you're like none of this satisfies at all.
Yeah.
And sin was satisfying.
We do it once.
Yeah.
We wouldn't live in it.
For sure.
Do it over and over.
And great.
By the next thing.
Great.
By the next thing.
Yeah.
(12:17):
We would stop.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We would stop if it was satisfying.
I totally get that.
So you were in college and you were kind of struggling with, you know, the balance of wanting to
to find God and be with him and submit to him while being sent.
Yeah.
And that's pursued by the enemy and by, you know, men and getting in these situations.
(12:38):
So how long did that go on and was there a like while you were in college?
Yeah.
And then, um, and then was there a point where you were like, I, I don't want to do this
anymore.
Yeah.
So there's two things with that.
Um, it got to a point after I went home one summer after my sophomore year.
(12:58):
I knew I wasn't going to be able to afford to go back to Liberty because it's so expensive.
And I was 19 at the time.
Mm-hmm.
And when I went home that summer, um, I was super depressed because I knew I couldn't
go back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm back in this wretched hometown.
Mm-hmm.
(13:19):
And I'm back around all this junk and I hated being there.
So I just gave myself over to just a hook up culture.
Yeah.
When people say they, they get addicted to meth, they get addicted to alcohol.
My addiction was sex.
There was times I would have sex with the same person because I was so addicted three or
four times in one day.
(13:40):
Mm-hmm.
Very unhealthy.
Yeah.
And it was never, and it still wasn't enough.
I remember guys being like, I can't, I can't have sex looking with you.
I'm exhausted.
Yeah.
But what was really happening in my soul was my soul was craving some type of love.
Yeah.
And that it wasn't really so much about the sex.
It's just that you, I felt loved during sex.
Mm-hmm.
(14:00):
Because it's intimate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I connected it.
Accepted.
Accepted.
All those things.
Yeah.
And so, but these guys would try to fall in love with me and I wouldn't want that.
I'm like, no, I'm not ready to be fully, fully out.
I have a boyfriend or anything like that.
Yeah.
And so long story short, I basically were like, sorry to come to the end of my, I was like unraveling.
Just like losing, I talked so many lies to my family.
(14:23):
I mean, to keep up doing what I was doing in the lies I was telling, it was so manipulative.
Just the chaos, the sneaking out.
I was sneak out in the middle of the night to go hook up with someone or dead, dead, dead,
dead, dead, dead, you know, the dating apps at that time made it a lot easier.
And really what happened was at my grandma's house one day, and mind you, I'm going to
(14:45):
church during this whole time.
Yeah.
Because I still love God.
Yeah.
I just don't know how to get out of this.
Yeah.
And so basically one time on God TV, I don't know if God TV is still a thing.
But back when I was 19, I see someone on God TV say they have been delivered from homosexuality.
(15:08):
And I was watching it at my grandma's house in the spread bedroom where I would stay at
sometimes.
I remember my mouth hitting the floor saying, what?
This is possible that you can be delivered.
Why has no one ever told me this?
And it's like when the words left his mouth, I knew deep down inside.
This was true.
(15:29):
And that it wasn't, it was an option for me through Christ that I could be set free from
this entirely.
I didn't know how to get there.
I didn't know what type of conversations to have.
But I knew that it was possible because the ways that this guy shared it, it was with such
a liberty and power.
And so that actually started the journey of getting me delivered.
(15:53):
A very, very long journey.
Yeah.
But it started the journey.
Yeah.
As it usually is.
Yeah.
And powerful stories often take a long time to get there.
That's incredible.
I love how you are sharing your conviction.
Right.
And you're like, I did love that.
Lots of convictions.
(16:14):
Jesus.
And it sounds like your grandma was a saint.
Very much.
Very much.
Is she still alive?
She passed.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
She passed during the pandemic.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
It's all those situations.
Yeah.
But she was probably the most active person in my corner.
(16:38):
I don't know if she ever knew I was gay.
But I do believe that she knew that God had sent me into the family.
And that I was a miracle from God just because she had two abortions.
And she cried out to God after she got saved for God to heal her wounds.
When she got healed, she had my dad.
So then my dad has me with my mom out of wedlock.
(17:01):
And I'm biracial.
Which on that side of my family, my white side, there was always some type of contention
with whites, they were whites, blacks, they were blacks.
So my grandma would always tell me growing up, God brought you into the world.
And I've always kind of felt that.
I always knew that.
Yeah.
Always, as a kid, I always felt different.
Yeah.
(17:22):
I always felt set apart.
Yeah.
I always internally felt there was a mighty call of God in my life.
Yep.
I didn't know how to achieve it.
But it was always there.
And I would feel it at youth camps when I would go out to fill it when I went to church.
I could just feel God's presence all over me.
But you know, my grandma, she's been tons of time praying for me.
(17:44):
Yeah.
Ten hours.
Yeah.
Which was when I read your testimony, that was the first question that popped in my mind.
Was who is praying for him?
Exactly.
Who has prayed over his life because somebody, somebody has been probably a lot of somebody's
happen.
But it's just a powerful testimony.
It's not one that just like just so happens.
(18:08):
Right.
You know, and I.
It is powerful.
It is the most powerful thing.
And it always hurts my heart when I see stuff.
We're here.
People say, Oh, really?
You're just going to pray is that all you're going to do?
I'm like, what do you mean?
All you're going to do?
That's everything.
Yeah.
Prayer is everything.
And it's reflected.
It's reflected in your life.
Sure.
(18:29):
I love your grandma.
And I'm so glad that you had her in your corner.
She sounds like an actual real angel.
Yeah.
She totally was.
And the white hair.
Oh, I love that.
As many years I can't remember.
She was always so, so gentle and kind.
Yeah.
Oh, I love that.
Do you want to share about being in ministry?
(18:50):
Yeah, I can share that.
Okay.
So basically that summer when I went home from college and that guy that said that, he
was a little from home of sexuality, that ministry comes to my hometown.
All the pastors in my area set up an evangelism event outside.
Like that was just a coincidence?
(19:10):
Well, I had actually set a prayer in my heart.
I had said, God, if this was real, then I need to go with that ministry to get delivered from
this.
Oh, wow.
I need to go with that ministry.
Wow.
When they came to my hometown, I was like, is this my opportunity?
At the time I was working an outback, the day of the event and my manager would not let
(19:32):
me off.
And he made, he would not cut me early because he knew I wanted to go to the event.
I had to stay all the way till closing.
So now it's like 10, 30.
This job was 20 minutes from my hometown.
So I get back home and I go into my, I'm saying my grandma's house and my grandpa's there,
(19:52):
but nothing that really matters.
But I go into my bedroom to lay down and I say this, God, I miss my opportunity.
I'm just going to stay gay.
And in the morning when I wake up, I'm going to tell my whole family, I'm gay and I'm tired
of running from this.
(20:12):
And this is who I am and I'm going to marry a man and have kids and just do this thing.
Okay.
When I lay down in the bed, the Holy Spirit blew into the room.
I'll never forget this.
It felt like a wind blew into the room and hit me.
Wow.
And I heard the voice of God say to me, get up out of this bed.
You're not coming back home.
(20:32):
I said, what?
And he goes, get up out of this bed, drive up there.
You're not coming back home.
Well, my grandma now walks into the bedroom.
I think she probably felt something too.
And she walks in my bedroom, she's in her night gown and she can, and I tell her what I
heard.
She goes, well, that's God speaking to you.
You should drive up there.
I said, how?
I love this woman.
Yeah.
(20:53):
I said, how?
It's 11, 30 at night.
How are they still there?
At this point, I've been to a couple of revival nights as a kid.
There you are.
Don't I stay and open that late.
Yeah.
And so she goes, no, you need to get up there.
Now my heart's pounding out of my chest.
I get, I call my cousin to drive me up there.
The closer that we get to the event, I have never experienced this.
(21:17):
I was weeping so hard in the car uncontrollably.
I was bent over.
My hands were shaking.
I was bawling and I could just feel the power of God just hitting me.
When we pulled up in the parking lot, they were still there.
The parking lot was completely full and it was one of those trash or idle nights.
(21:40):
So people brought things they were bound with and they were throwing them out the altar.
So there's like crack at the altar.
There's weed.
There's porn magazines.
There's corn albums.
All the things that people listen to.
And people were laying out in the grass weeping and crying.
I got out of the cart and sprinted to the stage.
(22:02):
As I'm sprinting, the leader of the ministry sees me from the stage, hops off the stage and
runs to me.
And I just collapse in his arm and I'm like screaming into his chest, grabbing him in his
back and squeezing his back.
And I said, if you don't get me out of here and take me with you, I'm going to literally
die here.
And he goes, the Lord told me you're supposed to come with my ministry.
(22:24):
So I ended up trying.
Go ahead.
You hadn't told him anything at that point.
It was just he saw me be lining it.
I was sprinting with all my mind.
My cousin was freaked out because I left her in the car.
He saw me from the altar and he said he could just see the Holy Spirit on me in the desperation.
And I just recorded all this with him.
(22:44):
We just recorded everything and taught through it.
And even he was like remembering it all.
I said, whoa, you know, because it was so many years ago.
Yeah.
How many years ago was that?
That was 2009.
Okay.
So I ended up from there going with him for three years as his personal assistant, travel
(23:05):
the world with him.
And that was amazing.
I experienced God the entire time.
I was living celibate.
I really wasn't thinking about same sex attraction.
I was just traveling the road with that ministry, working as his personal assistant and experiencing
the Lord.
Wow.
What a gift.
(23:25):
Yeah.
And then from there, were you just free forever?
So what happens is I leave the ministry because I want to go back to college.
Yeah.
And I had gotten so many prophecies while traveling with him about all these things I'd be doing
with the Lord that I'm now doing.
Okay.
(23:46):
This is really pivotal.
I want to go back to college.
Yeah.
I want to go back to college.
There was a selfish reason for this.
I wanted to finally prove to the world to people.
I can do this.
I'm going to go to school and I just had this idea.
I'm going to make a lot of money.
For two years after living the ministry, I was doing super great.
(24:08):
I was living pure all this.
I go to my university in St. Louis at the time.
I'm living with my spiritual family.
Now let me stay with them.
So I'm staying in their house.
Because I'm there slowly but surely I ended up starting to love the attention I was getting.
And so what happens is I start reading my Bible.
(24:31):
I stopped praying and I was going to a local church actually.
And what used to be exciting to share that I'm no longer gay ended up becoming a grievance.
Because at the local church I was attending, when I would share, I would start to feel
a little back and go away from certain people.
(24:51):
Now because I battled with my identity in some areas, I could have 20 friends that were
super excited.
But if I had one good friend out of those 20 that you felt them start back and go away
or their wife was like, "Do you think Justin's flirting with you?"
And I would hear these rumors.
And they would hurt my feelings.
(25:11):
I'm like, "I'm not flirting with him."
All guys hug each other.
I'm a very huggy person.
I wasn't flirting with him.
I really wasn't.
I was literally living pure.
No pornography, nothing.
So what happens is I end up imploding inside like this sucks.
Being apart of the local church sucks.
Or so judgmental.
It was easy when I traveled on the road because I got to leave churches each night and
(25:33):
not have to stay back and deal with this bull crop.
And I was sick of it.
So I stopped going to church and then guess what happens.
The world at my university accepts me just for being there.
I'm not falling back into homosexuality yet.
And I'm like, "Whoa, my worldly friends are ex-I'm loving being with them.
(25:55):
We're going to bars, we're drinking.
I joined the military.
All my military friends are accepting me.
I'm like, "Why are all of these friends so much more fun to be around than my church
friends at my local church?"
And my local church I was going to had a lot of young adults.
And I was not enjoying my time there.
Not because we weren't going out and drinking.
It didn't feel like that family type of violence the church should be feeling like.
(26:18):
It just felt very judgmental in some ways.
And so I just was not enjoying it because when I traveled with that ministry, it was very
family oriented.
I was still very close with those people today.
And so long story short, basically drinking, smoking weed.
I'm getting lots of attention.
(26:39):
I joined student government at my school.
So I'm pretty popular on campus.
And this has always been my life.
I was pretty popular in high school.
I was popular in the military.
I was popular on my campus.
I'm getting all this favor, all this attention.
I was close with a chancellor of my university.
I mean, it was crazy.
Close to my professors.
(27:00):
And long story short, I basically go to a party one night.
And there's a guy there that was exactly my type.
And I didn't know if he was gay or not.
Next thing I know we're in the bed together.
We're flirting that whole night.
I fully go back into it.
What was different this time was I was finally getting accepted because before I had never
came out.
(27:21):
All those times we talked up to this point.
Yeah.
I've not came out.
Now I'm coming out on campus.
And now and now same-sex marriage is approved.
So now I'm about 23 at this point.
And this is around 2015.
So five years of freedom.
Experiencing what the church is making me feel like.
(27:42):
It awakened my insecurities about myself, my frustrations with the church.
I end up making excuses for not standing with the Lord and letting him do the work and
running to him in prayer and dialogue with him and calling people and confess saying,
"Hey, I'm floating right now.
This is what I'm experiencing being in a local church right now."
(28:04):
And that local church doesn't, because I want to make sure this is to include people
who are watching, that small local church does not mean that that is the body of Christ
at large.
Right.
Because I'm now seeing several people in the body of Christ that super love me and I'm
super accepted in the body of Christ.
And where I'm going with this is those three or four or five people at that local church
(28:26):
that I created a mindset around, I let them be my God.
And there opinions be my God and that matters into my own hands.
You know what I'm saying?
Oh, yeah.
I think that happens way more often.
I think a lot of people build their faith on the few people in the church, not always.
I know that there are broken systems, broken churches, broken people breaking more people.
(28:49):
Right.
Yes.
That's part of it.
But I do.
I see it a lot.
A lot.
That people are like these three people hurt me in the church.
Shame on the church.
Exactly.
Maybe I should find some new friends or bring this to them or bring it.
It's like we're just so focused on our brokenness, on our shame that we let our shame tell
(29:11):
us what to do instead of, instead of going to the word, instead of going to God and seeking
forgiveness and even seeking understanding, which, and not allowing their opinions to be
your God.
Yes.
Because where are these five people at now?
I don't even know these people are.
We're not even friends.
Like I've moved so far on my life, but I allowed their perceptions of me to dictate why I walked
(29:37):
away.
And now I walk away from the, I don't walk, I won't say I walk away from the Lord.
I was still hungry for the Lord during this times.
But now that I became accepted by the world in college, I'm like, whoa, I'm loving this.
Yeah.
Then I get my first boyfriend for three years.
Madly, it was madly in love with him.
We just had great times together.
(29:58):
There were some issues for sure.
And I would get convicted in the relationship.
But basically I ended up having this season of 2015 until 2023, where I'm basically fully
out gay, going to Pride events.
I mean, the devil gave me the best of the best, like Disney World literally.
(30:22):
At a gay Pride event in Chicago, what made my boyfriend literally, we won a contest just
by taking a picture with your, your, your, your, your significant other, literally one
or short to Disney World.
Well, that's fun.
Right.
But like my thing is it's like the enemy was just giving me exactly what I wanted to keep
you right where you were.
(30:43):
Yeah, exactly.
And so basically I just like, I just go fully into this thing.
And I would get convicted alone the way.
Yeah.
Like the Holy Spirit would be speaking to me and say, this is not what I have for you.
There'd be times I would be in the middle of having sex with a guy and the Holy Spirit would
say to me, get out of this room now and go home.
(31:03):
Did you?
Well, what would happen is I would feel a Holy fear come over me.
And I couldn't finish having sex.
I would roll over in the bed and the guy I was willing to be like, what's going on?
I don't know.
I'm just not really feeling it right now.
And so we would just cuddle my heart's pounding out of my chest.
And I'm like, I hear his voice again.
You need to go home.
This is not what I have for you.
(31:25):
And I ran home and I was actually dating this guy.
I run home.
This was a different boyfriend from the one from three.
We had broken up.
But like this is just like showing you like how God was still chasing me down to give encouragement
to families watching that it may look like it's Rambo's and butterflies when they're seeing
their children backslidden.
And if they've been raising the Lord, the Lord is still chasing them down.
(31:48):
Why?
I know this for a fact because there's several guys I slept with that would roll over
in bed and say to me, do you believe God is real?
God would not allow me to enjoy the sex.
We would get finished having sex.
And I'm like, I just wanted to have sex.
Now you're asking me Bible questions.
And I never said I was a Christian to them, but I knew that was God doing that.
(32:10):
Or then guys would say to me when we were like hanging out, not just after we had sex,
but just when I was dating some guys.
And they would say, what is your thoughts?
Do you think this is right for us to be together like this?
Wow.
Do you think that God is like real and like, this is wrong?
I would have so many gay men say this to me during my backslidden season.
(32:32):
And I felt like God was making me so uncomfortable the entire time.
And it would be like, this would happen over and over and over and over and over and over.
These top of conversations would happen.
And I would be like, I know you're trying to get my attention, but I don't know how to
get out of this.
Yeah.
Like, I don't, I'm not attracted to women.
(32:52):
That was my main excuse.
Yeah.
Like, I'm not attracted to women.
What do you want me to do?
Yeah.
Well, clearly he's not wanting me to be having sex like this.
Yeah.
And clearly he's not wanting me to be addicted to pornography and go into parties and drinking
now, smoking weed.
And so, you know, you have these situations happening that I kept justifying, but still
deep down inside, I wanted God because at this point, I've experienced him my whole entire
(33:16):
life.
But during this backslidden season, I was running from him.
But also still running to him.
So there'd be times all my way to have a hook up.
I'd be in the car crying saying, Lord, if you stop the car or have the guy text me, I'll
just turn around and I'll go back home because I don't really don't want to do this.
(33:36):
And like it wouldn't stop and I'd go and still do do the thing and then go back home and
just feel completely like in the middle of the sex, it feels great.
Sure.
But then when I would get back home, I'd feel completely lonely and completely unsatisfied.
Isn't that true with any, any sin, any, I would say especially sexual sin, not whether
(33:57):
a hetero outside of marriage, pornography.
When is that not the outcome?
This is so great for a minute.
A minute.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Yeah.
And then it's, it leaves you with emptiness and sorrow and why did I do that?
Exactly.
Who am I hurting?
How am I benefiting?
How is this bringing any goodness into my life?
(34:19):
Could we go back real quick to your, your boyfriend's that you had for three years?
Would you, would you share what you prayed before you met him?
Yeah.
So I at this point, I'm like, haven't had a boyfriend yet.
(34:39):
And I was in prayer one day or maybe I was just venting to God.
I don't think I was, I wasn't like, oh my knees like Jesus.
Yeah.
I mean, it's really the same.
I should share.
I was just saying out loud.
I do not know how to not be gay.
I'm angry.
I've heard several gay people say this to me that are still gay.
(34:59):
I prayed that prayer, nothing's changed.
And I remember I said, I don't know how to not be gay.
And I remember just like getting so passionate, I was like, can you please send me a gay man
that has the same morals and values like me and at least knows God.
So I can have someone I can talk about with God.
(35:20):
Because at this point, I've just kind of slept with men that I don't know what their religious
backgrounds were.
Yeah.
And we had great times together and sin.
And so it was like literally, after I said that prayer, remember laying down and going to
bed.
And I don't know how to tell you that I knew that I knew that when I prayed that or said
that out loud, that God was going to give me what I wanted to teach me a lesson.
(35:44):
And so what ends up happening is maybe a week later, I'm on Tinder and I see this guy's
profile pop up.
And it was like kind of glowing to me.
Like there's something about this, like the smile, the face, they just look so happy and
so kind and legit.
(36:07):
And the bio was exactly verbatim what I prayed.
And my twisted mind is like, God has given me what I asked for.
Knowing scripturally, that's not true.
Yeah.
Oh, I feel the spirit.
And I matched with him.
He actually super liked me.
(36:28):
We went hung out on the first date.
We're both weeping, like crying tearing up because we were literally sharing the same heartbeat.
Something got so intertwined into both of us.
Now he wasn't at the same level Christian wise as me.
He was Catholic.
So we had a lot of theological differences.
And then shortly, shortly after we started dating, the Christianity aspect of him starts
(36:53):
dying out.
And he's like, I just don't know if I've been believing God anymore.
And he went to a Christian school as well.
So we had some of the same similar stories.
He wasn't my less than a cicada and thing like that.
But I fell in love with him and I fell in love with his family.
So I got super close with him.
We went on trips together.
I was really embedded into his family.
And I wanted to marry him.
(37:13):
This was like, I was in love.
This was the boyfriend that we both got sent to Disney World together.
And so there was lots of things that were wrong.
That was happening.
But I'm thinking to my mom, this is like any couple you argue at the beginning.
And he almost hit on me one time and I'm like, okay, you know, we'll work through it.
I was trying to instill biblical principles that God has ordained for a man and a woman
(37:39):
into a same sex relationship.
It does not work.
It does not work.
Two men being together emotionally.
We both have egos at the same level.
There was no like cow-towing to each other or like, or, you know, like a woman.
Like when I see a man and a woman together, biologically, you see the woman submit to
(38:02):
her husband and not in an abuse of submissive way, but as Christ loves the church top away,
letting the husband lead.
But with this relationship, it's like our energies were just matched at a high level.
And we were just doing the exact same thing.
It's like we were becoming each other, which is really unhealthy.
(38:24):
Because he wanted me to do things that he wanted me to do for him.
So it ends up getting to, basically, at the end of the relationship.
He was on distance.
I was about to graduate college.
I was going to relocate to live with him and relocate to that state.
And that's when things took a turn.
(38:45):
I fly out there.
And the whole time I'm just feeling very, something's feeling weird.
I was feeling in my spirit.
Something wasn't right with his relationship.
And when people limit Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit can talk to you in the middle of anything.
I know multiple people who God has talked to while they're in the middle of sin.
(39:09):
So as we're having sex, I hear the Holy Spirit say to me, "You've been deceived about this
whole relationship.
This is the first time I heard God actually talk to me that clearly in this relationship.
Because up until this point, I was living a blissful, loving relationship.
And sometimes just because the Lord is silent doesn't mean he's not ready to speak at the
(39:31):
right time.
I love how God interjects when he knows when he's supposed to.
And we see that a lot in the Old Testament with Israel.
He knows perfectly when to speak up and confront.
And God says to me, "You've been cheated on several times."
So after we have sex, I roll over in bed.
(39:52):
I'm sick to my stomach.
He puts his arm in my shoulder and I can tell he's like, "Well, what's going on?"
I roll over in bed and I'm like, "Have you been talking to someone else?"
He goes, "No."
I was like, "Are you sure?"
I said, "Something just feels off.
Even when we had sex that night, our souls weren't connected."
I was like, "I could just tell."
(40:13):
And I was like, "Are you sure?
I feel like you have."
And then it's up coming out.
He was having an emotional connection with someone in that state and was pursuing this individual
and cheating.
Well, you would think because God spoke to me.
This was like 2019 before the pandemic happened.
(40:36):
You would think that would have woken me up.
I literally was so depressed when I got home.
We ended it.
We tried to make it work, but I was like, "I can't.
I'm not moving to a different state to be with someone that's going to cheat."
And I wanted a monochemist relationship.
I wanted what you read in the Bible, but with a man.
Yeah, you wanted a biblical homosexual marriage, which...
(40:59):
And I began to realize when I got a lot of my gay friends, lesbians are straight people.
Lesbians, straight people, because I don't want to demonize just gay people with this.
Sure.
Yeah.
I began to realize straight couples, lesbian couples, two men that are married, whatever,
that I began to realize I was meeting so many people that were opening up their marriages.
(41:20):
And I'm like, "Is monogamy dying?"
You know what I'm saying?
And so I began to be like, "Whoa."
And I was just like, "I just don't know what I want to do."
So then the pandemic happens.
No one...
I don't know who was actually hooking up during that time.
You know what I'm saying?
They gave parameters on how to have sex during the...
(41:40):
I was too terrified.
Do it six feet apart.
Exactly.
I was too terrified.
So basically during the pandemic, I basically just became gay and celibate, not going to
church and was basically trapped in the house for a year and launched my photography business
at that time because so many people were getting married at home and I was making so much
(42:00):
money.
Yeah.
And we're shooting tons of gay weddings.
So now I'm shooting gay weddings.
And I could tell that my Christian friends around me was like, "You okay?"
You know, like, "What?"
Yeah.
No, but I was making good money.
Yeah.
I was a lover of money.
Yeah.
That's part of my testimony.
Yeah.
I was making good money.
(42:21):
Yeah.
Good money.
And I loved it.
Yeah.
You know, looking back at it now, you know, it was wrong.
But essentially, I go through all of that and that's when I end up moving to Seattle and
now we're 2021 to 2023, which you know what happens in 2023.
But essentially when I moved to Seattle, I moved there to be gay and I know that
(42:44):
several gay people live there and several gay weddings happen there.
I moved there from my business to prosper and it did.
I moved there because I got a new job and it made a lot of money with that job.
So I moved there.
So my closest friends are already out there and I love hiking.
So I moved to the West Coast to finally be happy to be gay.
(43:04):
Yeah.
And when I lived out there, it was like two years of just...
And I say this loosely because this was when I was in the world.
But it was the best two years of my gay lifestyle apart from God.
And just living how I wanted to live.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(43:25):
Which is not fruitful, not fulfilling.
So even in the midst of you living your best life, was it really your best life?
No.
I mean, that would be completely drawn coming back from parties having hangovers.
Yeah.
You're in the midst of it.
It's like you're laughing with your friends the next morning.
(43:45):
Yeah.
You got plastered and we're laughing.
But like inside you're like, I really feel like crap.
Yeah.
But you remember these memories and like you're puking.
Yeah.
That was fun.
I was like a volleyball team, a gay football team.
I had all the friends you can imagine.
You know, I'm making as much money as possible.
You know, my photography business was growing out there.
(44:06):
Yeah.
And I'm meeting just all these friends.
Like, I was like in the end crowds.
Yeah.
Like saying always put me in the end crowds.
Yeah.
Where I just was like the center of attention and like I just got all the attention.
Yeah.
I mean, he knew what you needed and he knew what you were looking for, which was acceptance.
Exactly.
He's like, I'll give you that.
(44:26):
And I'm going to keep you right here.
Exactly.
And you're going to think that you're full.
Exactly.
You have everything you need, that you're content, that you're satisfied, but we're not.
We're never going to be satisfied in anything of this world.
We just aren't.
No matter what.
Okay.
So what brought you out of those best two years of your gay life?
(44:49):
Yeah.
So near the end, last July, I was dating.
2023.
Yeah.
I was dating someone that my friends and his friends were like, you two need to be together.
You don't want exactly the exact same thing.
It was basically a replica of the three year relationship.
(45:15):
And I was like, this is awesome.
So we're together.
I'm going to skip past a lot with this to get to the usual story.
But long story short, I go visit him.
So now I'm flying out of Seattle to go visit him at his state.
Now it's a repeat.
And he's going to move to his state with him because he can't leave due to just his job.
(45:36):
Okay.
Like when my job is flexible, I'm like, I'm in love with you.
I wouldn't move, but I would move for you.
We even talked about weddings and marriage.
And we were only, we had only been talking for like three months, long distance.
And I'm like, this is crazy.
And so long story short, I'm at his house.
And I'm like, that weekend, it was planned for us to be dating.
(46:00):
And I said, well, before I agree to be your boyfriend, I have to ask you a question
because I'm nervous about asking you this.
And this will really determine a lot.
Have you been hooking up with other people while we've been talking?
It literally looked like a demonic spirit took over his face.
Wow.
And he literally looked at me and said, are you that beep and stupid?
(46:23):
That you wouldn't think that I was hooking up with other people or haven't even hooking
up with other people?
And I said, no, we were talking about monogamy.
We were talking about all these things.
It goes, yeah, you're right.
But not until we're official.
I said, so how many people have been hooking up with?
He goes, I don't know how many to tell you.
(46:43):
So I'm like sick to my stomach.
I'm pissed.
So I'm like packing my stuff.
I'm getting out of there.
He's screaming, hollering loses.
It slams the front door.
It won't let me out the front door.
We're arguing.
It was very toxic.
We're making out.
Then I'm pushing him off of me.
I said, no, I'm pissed.
Just that crazy, tumultuous, like you're in a abusive relationship type thing.
(47:05):
And we just had this crazy dynamic.
And I just was like, I got, but what was going on my head was, I've already been through
this.
And you're going to trick me through this entire relationship.
If we get together, you're going to ask me, let's open it up, let's bring someone else
in.
And I feel like you lied to me and tricked me, right?
So I ended up flying home early.
(47:27):
I'm like, I got to get back home.
As I get back home, my roommates says, I know you just got back, but I need to speak with
you.
And I'm like, okay, what's going on?
She goes, well, you know, I'm talking to this new girl.
This is my best friend, like for three years in Seattle.
And she goes, you don't like her.
And I said, yeah, I really don't, because she had a lot going on.
(47:50):
I just didn't like her because I didn't like her.
Yeah.
I didn't like the situation.
That was causing.
And I was seeing my friend getting involved in something that could be very toxic for
her.
Right.
So I was really protecting my best friend.
Whatever she says to me, to salvage our friendship, I think you should move out.
I don't want to live with you.
I want to stay your best friend where she screwed me because my lease was ending in 20 days.
(48:16):
It's really hard to find another apartment in 20 days.
At the time, I did not know that the Lord was ordaining all of this to get me out of this
lifestyle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When she says this to me, I say back to her.
I don't say back to her, but I say out loud.
Yeah.
(48:36):
I was like, it really feels like God, you're shoving all these doors in my life.
Yeah.
And she makes a comment and goes, well, maybe he is.
Well, I'm looking at her like, I could say the same things to you.
I'm pissed.
I'm pissed.
Yeah.
You literally went behind my back with the other roommate to basically get me out of the
(48:57):
house.
And you're my best friend and you didn't have enough balls or whatever.
You know, coffin is whatever to say to me, this is probably what should happen.
You basically screwed me over, but it was really the Lord.
Yeah.
I go upstairs to my bedroom and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and I'm like, God, it
(49:17):
really feels like you're closing everything.
This is so weird.
I feel you doing something and I said, there was no wars yet.
Yeah.
I didn't even know what I was praying.
I was really prophesying my deliverance and these words leave my mouth.
My grandma always told me to never turn your back on the nation of Israel.
(49:41):
And I'll know when something happens to Israel, you're close to coming back and I don't want
to be left behind.
I don't want to be separated from you.
And when something happens to them, I will know that's a cue for me to get fully out of
this lifestyle.
And when was this early September?
(50:03):
And the reason I know is because I had bought tickets to Beyonce and she was coming to Seattle
and my friends were flying into town and I went to that concert after singing that prayer.
And I was actually feeling apprehensive about it, but I still went because I had friends
coming in the town.
I'm not going to cancel them.
Then they bought tickets.
(50:23):
Yeah.
I go to the concert, which was a very gay, centric album Renaissance.
I listened to it almost every day, very gay forward, very intimate songs.
And she was one of my music icons along with several others.
I loved R&B music, just anything that was really passionate, loved me.
(50:44):
And so in the middle of all that, I go to the concert and I'm like, I'm still feeling
the anxiety that I know the Lord's closing doors.
And I'm like, I just got to make it past this weekend.
We'll go to Beyonce or friends will fly home.
So I go and shoot a wedding.
I have two weddings left.
So now we're like getting to the end of September.
I'm shooting this wedding.
As I'm shooting the wedding, somebody plugged in a coffee pod that apparently malfunctioned
(51:09):
and the steam was oversteaming out of the water area.
And it reached up and hit this fire alarm.
When it hit the fire alarm, people laugh at this point, but I don't care because this is,
I mean, I've seen people online laugh at this, but this is so accurate for me.
This was how Holy Spirit spoke to me.
That fire alarm went off.
(51:29):
And when I tell you my soul went off inside, something opened up and awakened and it felt
like a 911 emergency in the Spirit realm.
And I hear the Lord speak to me, not like, oh, I'm good.
He's like, audible, but it was like in my head.
Yeah.
In your soul.
(51:49):
And when he spoke, my entire being responded.
And as I was hearing him, he goes, the alarm is going to go off a second time.
And I'm going to speak to you and show you something.
I said, there's absolutely no way because when this fire alarm went off, the local fire
department had to come off, come out to turn off the alarm.
(52:12):
This is a whole big thing.
Yeah.
And this was out of wedding.
And this was during the setup, during the wedding.
Okay.
So they're not walking down the aisle or running out.
Yeah.
Well, guess what happens?
If God actually is real and he actually talks and speaks, then what he says will come to pass.
And it has came to pass.
Several scriptures have came to pass.
(52:34):
Well, what about what about when God is speaking to you something and it comes to pass?
Well, guess what?
Exactly what God told me came to pass.
The fire alarm goes off a second time in less than 15 minutes.
When I see it go off my mouth hits the floor, I'm like, oh, my goodness.
And the Holy Spirit says, look at your phone.
I want to show you something.
(52:56):
When I tell you, when I turn my phone over, it was already vibrating.
Yeah.
I don't know what was going on.
It was like, most of the notifications.
When I turned my phone over, it literally said breaking news.
Hamas has attacked Israel on its high holy day at the very moment, at the very second,
the very prayer I prayed came to pass.
(53:20):
I ran out of that church, ran to the side of the building and began to weep and cry.
And it wasn't tears of joy.
It was tears of, it's like my whole life flashed before me.
And I was like, I have fumbled.
My entire life, I'm embarrassed.
I'm ashamed.
I know you have to be ashamed of me.
(53:42):
I have fumbled every prophecy you've spoken over me.
Yeah.
I have become such a sexual addict.
I go to parties.
I've lost my mind.
And I've justified my lifestyle of how I'm living as if I'm probably still the Christian.
I have a lot of theological views.
(54:02):
I don't believe in what saved always saved.
But I don't believe you can walk away from Christ immediately.
I believe I was very backslidden and I was convinced that I was going to heaven.
Yeah.
I didn't look like Christ at all.
I'm weeping out there and I say these words.
You're not going to say to me, well, doing good and faithful servant.
(54:24):
The same voice I just heard speak to me is not talking to me any longer.
It's dead silence.
This goes on for two weeks.
I'm leaving with my two gay best friends at the time while I'm transitioning to find
an apartment back in Seattle.
The Holy Spirit actually told me to move in with my gay best friends temporarily.
(54:47):
And that boomerangs back around because God is infinite in wisdom and sees all.
And he knows exactly why that happened because they saw me get delivered and their mouths
hit the floor.
So God was having me stay with them.
I didn't know that at the time.
Why even I said, this is going to sound weird to people.
When I tell them the Holy Spirit told me to move in with my two gay best friends, there
(55:10):
are awesome people.
Kind hearts.
I love them to this day.
I just don't agree with how they're living biblically.
Not because I just and gets to determine.
The Bible determines this and I align with God's work as a love God.
But I don't hate them.
I've not ostracized them.
(55:32):
But what I'm going with this is I ended up living with them.
I have to fly out to shoot my last and final wedding in St. Louis.
And I said, this is it.
All of my events that are connected to worldly stuff.
Weddings where people are getting just plastered.
(55:54):
This is the final wedding of the year in October.
I had one more concert with my best friend, like Lord just had me get through this last
concert.
I know you're not pleased with me with this.
And I went to the concert with her and we had a blast.
Because I, but inside I'm like, I know I'm not supposed to be here.
God forgive me.
And then I go to tell my spiritual family.
And when I got there, I began to just dump.
(56:16):
And they already knew.
They've been praying for me.
They knew.
They knew I was backslidden.
I manipulated them and lied.
But they know they have the Holy Spirit.
They're very, they're two people that hear the voice of God.
And they have been crying out for me.
They just didn't fully have to call me and say anything.
Yeah.
And long story short, I go through a 30 day journey with the Lord where I get stuck in St.
(56:38):
Louis and the Lord delivers me from homosexuality.
Thank you guys so much for being here today and joining us for this conversation with Justin
Bristol.
If you are watching on YouTube, please like, subscribe, comment, let us know you're here.
Let us know what you think.
If you have any questions or comments, you can email us at sup.
(57:07):
That's sup@stuffgodneversaid.com.
And you can find us on Instagram @stuffgodneversaid.
And make sure to tune in for part two.
[Music]
[Music]
(57:30):
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Yeah.
(00:00):
I feel like that's one of those things that can really easily be twisted because as you
either struggle with it and you're ashamed or you don't struggle with it and you feel
like you can't speak into it because you don't struggle with it.
[Music]
Hello, thank you guys so much for being here today on Stuff God Never Said where we are
(00:22):
challenging assumptions and embracing the truth and love of Jesus Christ and who he is
and who his word says he is.
I'm your host Audrey Cauthen and I am so glad you're here.
Friends, we do want to give you a heads up that some of the content in this episode in
particular is of more mature content and sexual content.
(00:43):
So just be aware if you have a younger audience in the room with you or this is something that
you are struggling yourself with and you're not ready to hear it.
We just want you to be aware that there is some mature content in this episode.
Today on the very first episode of Stuff God Never Said we have with us Justin Bristol
who has an incredible testimony of transformation in Jesus Christ going from a homosexual lifestyle
(01:07):
to a life of freedom and love and passion in Jesus Christ.
So I am so glad you're here.
Thank you so much for being here.
It is such an honor to have you with us today.
For sure, thank you for inviting me.
I was so excited to record this with you and it's an honor to be here in such a privilege
to be your first guest.
Wow.
I was so excited.
I'm excited.
It's a win-win.
(01:27):
Yes, it is.
Yes.
All right.
So Justin, I came across a, I don't even know how or where it came from.
It's somehow came across.
My feed is sometime in the month of June on some social media platform that you shared this
incredible testimony of being delivered from your life of homosexuality.
And I don't know.
I, again, I don't know where it came from or who shared it, but I read it and it was,
(01:53):
it was detailed and it was so Jesus.
It was just permeated Holy Spirit through every single word and the things the Lord was speaking
to you, the fact that you were listening to what he was saying, how he kind of, I feel
like he, he hunted you down.
He was like, hey, I'm talking to you.
(02:16):
It's so much love and with so much grace.
And I, I would just love for you to, to share some of your testimony of how you, how you came
into the homosexual lifestyle, what that looked like in the seasons you, you were there and
then how God delivered you from that.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, so many people saw that testimony that I posted.
(02:40):
Yeah.
And it went viral.
I mean, all over the world, I was getting people from the UK, people from Australia, Iceland,
New Zealand, pop a New Guinea, Africa.
I mean, I was overwhelmed with joy, I don't know, I'm stressed out.
I was not expecting it to go that viral.
And I didn't do anything to like market that.
(03:00):
Yeah.
I just posted it because the Holy Spirit told me to post it.
And that's how we connected really, as you saw it.
I still don't even know how you saw it because we weren't even friends initially.
But back to your question, how did I get into the homosexual lifestyle?
I think I don't remember ever feeling like I was attracted to men or women.
(03:23):
I mean, we were just being a kid and just enjoying my childhood.
Yeah.
And it was right around and the years were a little off here.
Maybe four, maybe five.
I was in a situation where I know the little boy my same age basically molested me one night
at a sleepover.
(03:44):
And with that, that opened up a door to me being attracted sexually to guys.
And I think going through school like kindergarten all the way up to like fifth grade, I never explored
any of this stuff again.
It wasn't until I got to high school that all your friends are dating, all your friends
(04:06):
are like finding people to talk to and stuff like that that I began to realize, oh my gosh,
I am attracted to guys.
But I was hiding it inside like I'm not talking about this.
So I would try to just ignore this feeling, had a poor addiction as well that was going through
these entire years of my life.
There was a lot of family dynamics I'm skipping.
(04:28):
But just, you know, a lot of broken family stuff that also aided to just the breakdown of
my identity.
And then I was raised in a town that had a lot of racial issues, whites and blacks and
intermingling those.
So I battled growing up with my racial identity of being biracial because I'm half white, half
(04:49):
black.
And so combining all of those things together, you have a got a boy in high school that's
just like, I can't wait to get out of this hometown to explore my life.
And then the midst of all of this, I was still going to church.
My grandma would take me.
I was raised in a spirit field church.
I experienced God multiple times at youth camps.
(05:11):
Yeah.
And in the presence of weeping out of cry, like I loved Jesus this whole time.
I loved Jesus, but just had same sex attraction.
But the same sex attraction always led to a life of just sex.
And it doesn't matter if I would have married a man if it was within marriage or not within
marriage, I was just attracted to sex with men.
(05:34):
And so I couldn't get enough of it.
And I think a lot of that had to do with just how I was so stressed out I was a kid.
I feel like the sex was like healing the stress in the moment.
And I would run to that when I would get stressed that I would run to pornography.
Or if I was having identity issues or just self-imploding on myself, these outlets were
(05:56):
helping to get a small amount.
And so it wasn't until I graduated and got out of my hometown that I said, okay, I'm finally
going to explore being gay and see what this is like.
So that's really how I fully gave myself over to it.
Because I was ready to escape my crazy hometown really.
>> Yeah, yeah.
So then did you just go to college and do the party thing?
(06:19):
>> Well, I went to a Bible school.
I went to Liberty University in Virginia.
And I went there to experience the Lord.
And I wanted to grow in that and understand like, my faith, you can study anything at Liberty
and this isn't a nod at Liberty.
But when I was there, the enemy would just attract you to the right people.
(06:43):
>> Yeah.
>> And I'm getting attracted to the people that snuck off campus.
And they were all straight.
But I would sneak off with them.
And next thing I know I'm going to the local university in Virginia like James Madison
University, George Washington University.
I was going to frat parties, get in joint party and Liberty is so strict you had to lie
(07:04):
and say you're going somewhere and sign off and put someone's number.
So some of these people would lie and put their moms number down.
>> And their moms were like, okay.
>> No, the mom would lie.
For us.
>> Yes.
>> Well, when I snuck off to go to these parties, I cannot tell you when I would go to these
parties, some gay guy would find me at the parties.
(07:25):
It's like the enemy was like, let me bring you into this world fully.
And I would sneak off with them.
And I would go have intimate moments with them.
Sneak off my friends didn't know.
I think they kind of knew what was going on.
And I would lie and twist it and be like, because one of their friends will be a girl.
(07:45):
And I'm like, can you at like, we were the ones that went back to you.
So I would come back and lie and twist it because I was so embarrassed.
And I didn't want to touch people at my Christian university that I was battling with that because
of the embarrassment.
Because clearly, most evangelical Baptist, it was a Baptist university.
(08:05):
It was always, you're going to go to hell practicing that.
I never heard anyone ever say, but you can be delivered from that in Jesus.
So I just assumed, this is just my law in life.
I didn't know deliverance was an option.
Yeah.
>> Wow.
Yeah.
It's one of those things that can really easily be twisted because as you either struggle with
(08:28):
it and you're ashamed or you don't struggle with it and you feel like you can't speak
into it because you don't struggle with it.
So people like you, your boldness, your obedience, your walking Christ is going to, it's
going to have a massive ripple effect because I understand that.
I understand even if the pastors and the teachers and the whoever's at your university didn't
(08:56):
think, if you struggle with homosexuality, you're going to go to hell.
I mean, I thought that but they may also not have known they needed to say that isn't true.
You know what I mean?
So it's really, it's really powerful that you're sharing your story.
>> Yeah.
>> Extremely powerful.
>> I agree.
>> And I'm so proud of you.
>> Thank you.
(09:16):
>> There's the water to be your friend and watch this all happen.
One of the things you talked about was the enemy, I don't know if you use these words,
but targeting you, whether it was with, you would find people.
And I've had this thought even about drug addiction because I know a lot of times a drug addict.
(09:39):
You can go anywhere and you'll find a way.
You'll find the people who have what you want.
And I'm always like, I wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to find drugs.
But it's like the enemy knows what you're looking for.
And he finds a way to open those doors to that.
And even in your story, you go to a Christian college to seek the Lord and he's like, but look,
(10:01):
here's, I'm going to nudge you this way.
Just like one little yes, I'm going to nudge you this way towards that.
Have you experienced that repetitively in your life as almost like you have a target
kind of on your back through the enemies trying to nudge you one direction or another?
Yeah, there was definitely lots of moments when I was in the world.
(10:26):
Because I experienced God and I knew growing up my entire life, even in my adulthood, he
was always there.
And I would feel convicted.
I just wasn't doing these things that always enjoying it.
But there was times where I definitely knew the enemy had brought someone into my life.
Like I just knew it was just too perfect on the outside.
(10:49):
And this would always happen.
Like I could break up with a boyfriend and be like, no, I'm going to take some time to
be single.
And I would go out with some friends that night and someone would just find me at the bar.
And they were everything I wanted in a guy.
And next thing I know we're dating in two weeks.
It's like I never was single.
I was always hopping in and out of relationships.
And if I wasn't dating someone, I was hooking up, of course, until I dated someone.
(11:12):
But it's like the enemy always brought me what was the best for me in the world.
What would distract you?
What would distract you?
For sure.
And keep me feeding off of the enemy.
You know what I'm saying?
To keep me as one of his disobedient children like the Bible says.
And so, and it was always a luring.
But there was definitely lots of moments.
I definitely knew even when he was over like, gosh, this was definitely sent.
(11:36):
It's from the enemy for me.
But because I was so hungry or desperate to be a guy, I mean, married to a guy, I didn't
care.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I still want it, what I wanted.
Yeah.
Because sin is pleasurable for a season.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
(11:56):
Yeah.
You chase these things down and they feed you temporarily.
Yeah.
Until God found their breaks in and you're like none of this satisfies at all.
Yeah.
And sin was satisfying.
We do it once.
Yeah.
We wouldn't live in it.
For sure.
Do it over and over.
And great.
By the next thing.
Great.
By the next thing.
Yeah.
(12:17):
We would stop.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We would stop if it was satisfying.
I totally get that.
So you were in college and you were kind of struggling with, you know, the balance of wanting to
to find God and be with him and submit to him while being sent.
Yeah.
And that's pursued by the enemy and by, you know, men and getting in these situations.
(12:38):
So how long did that go on and was there a like while you were in college?
Yeah.
And then, um, and then was there a point where you were like, I, I don't want to do this
anymore.
Yeah.
So there's two things with that.
Um, it got to a point after I went home one summer after my sophomore year.
(12:58):
I knew I wasn't going to be able to afford to go back to Liberty because it's so expensive.
And I was 19 at the time.
Mm-hmm.
And when I went home that summer, um, I was super depressed because I knew I couldn't
go back and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm back in this wretched hometown.
Mm-hmm.
(13:19):
And I'm back around all this junk and I hated being there.
So I just gave myself over to just a hook up culture.
Yeah.
When people say they, they get addicted to meth, they get addicted to alcohol.
My addiction was sex.
There was times I would have sex with the same person because I was so addicted three or
four times in one day.
(13:40):
Mm-hmm.
Very unhealthy.
Yeah.
And it was never, and it still wasn't enough.
I remember guys being like, I can't, I can't have sex looking with you.
I'm exhausted.
Yeah.
But what was really happening in my soul was my soul was craving some type of love.
Yeah.
And that it wasn't really so much about the sex.
It's just that you, I felt loved during sex.
Mm-hmm.
(14:00):
Because it's intimate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I connected it.
Accepted.
Accepted.
All those things.
Yeah.
And so, but these guys would try to fall in love with me and I wouldn't want that.
I'm like, no, I'm not ready to be fully, fully out.
I have a boyfriend or anything like that.
Yeah.
And so long story short, I basically were like, sorry to come to the end of my, I was like unraveling.
Just like losing, I talked so many lies to my family.
(14:23):
I mean, to keep up doing what I was doing in the lies I was telling, it was so manipulative.
Just the chaos, the sneaking out.
I was sneak out in the middle of the night to go hook up with someone or dead, dead, dead,
dead, dead, dead, you know, the dating apps at that time made it a lot easier.
And really what happened was at my grandma's house one day, and mind you, I'm going to
(14:45):
church during this whole time.
Yeah.
Because I still love God.
Yeah.
I just don't know how to get out of this.
Yeah.
And so basically one time on God TV, I don't know if God TV is still a thing.
But back when I was 19, I see someone on God TV say they have been delivered from homosexuality.
(15:08):
And I was watching it at my grandma's house in the spread bedroom where I would stay at
sometimes.
I remember my mouth hitting the floor saying, what?
This is possible that you can be delivered.
Why has no one ever told me this?
And it's like when the words left his mouth, I knew deep down inside.
This was true.
(15:29):
And that it wasn't, it was an option for me through Christ that I could be set free from
this entirely.
I didn't know how to get there.
I didn't know what type of conversations to have.
But I knew that it was possible because the ways that this guy shared it, it was with such
a liberty and power.
And so that actually started the journey of getting me delivered.
(15:53):
A very, very long journey.
Yeah.
But it started the journey.
Yeah.
As it usually is.
Yeah.
And powerful stories often take a long time to get there.
That's incredible.
I love how you are sharing your conviction.
Right.
And you're like, I did love that.
Lots of convictions.
(16:14):
Jesus.
And it sounds like your grandma was a saint.
Very much.
Very much.
Is she still alive?
She passed.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
She passed during the pandemic.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
It's all those situations.
Yeah.
But she was probably the most active person in my corner.
(16:38):
I don't know if she ever knew I was gay.
But I do believe that she knew that God had sent me into the family.
And that I was a miracle from God just because she had two abortions.
And she cried out to God after she got saved for God to heal her wounds.
When she got healed, she had my dad.
So then my dad has me with my mom out of wedlock.
(17:01):
And I'm biracial.
Which on that side of my family, my white side, there was always some type of contention
with whites, they were whites, blacks, they were blacks.
So my grandma would always tell me growing up, God brought you into the world.
And I've always kind of felt that.
I always knew that.
Yeah.
Always, as a kid, I always felt different.
Yeah.
(17:22):
I always felt set apart.
Yeah.
I always internally felt there was a mighty call of God in my life.
Yep.
I didn't know how to achieve it.
But it was always there.
And I would feel it at youth camps when I would go out to fill it when I went to church.
I could just feel God's presence all over me.
But you know, my grandma, she's been tons of time praying for me.
(17:44):
Yeah.
Ten hours.
Yeah.
Which was when I read your testimony, that was the first question that popped in my mind.
Was who is praying for him?
Exactly.
Who has prayed over his life because somebody, somebody has been probably a lot of somebody's
happen.
But it's just a powerful testimony.
It's not one that just like just so happens.
(18:08):
Right.
You know, and I.
It is powerful.
It is the most powerful thing.
And it always hurts my heart when I see stuff.
We're here.
People say, Oh, really?
You're just going to pray is that all you're going to do?
I'm like, what do you mean?
All you're going to do?
That's everything.
Yeah.
Prayer is everything.
And it's reflected.
It's reflected in your life.
Sure.
(18:29):
I love your grandma.
And I'm so glad that you had her in your corner.
She sounds like an actual real angel.
Yeah.
She totally was.
And the white hair.
Oh, I love that.
As many years I can't remember.
She was always so, so gentle and kind.
Yeah.
Oh, I love that.
Do you want to share about being in ministry?
(18:50):
Yeah, I can share that.
Okay.
So basically that summer when I went home from college and that guy that said that, he
was a little from home of sexuality, that ministry comes to my hometown.
All the pastors in my area set up an evangelism event outside.
Like that was just a coincidence?
(19:10):
Well, I had actually set a prayer in my heart.
I had said, God, if this was real, then I need to go with that ministry to get delivered from
this.
Oh, wow.
I need to go with that ministry.
Wow.
When they came to my hometown, I was like, is this my opportunity?
At the time I was working an outback, the day of the event and my manager would not let
(19:32):
me off.
And he made, he would not cut me early because he knew I wanted to go to the event.
I had to stay all the way till closing.
So now it's like 10, 30.
This job was 20 minutes from my hometown.
So I get back home and I go into my, I'm saying my grandma's house and my grandpa's there,
(19:52):
but nothing that really matters.
But I go into my bedroom to lay down and I say this, God, I miss my opportunity.
I'm just going to stay gay.
And in the morning when I wake up, I'm going to tell my whole family, I'm gay and I'm tired
of running from this.
(20:12):
And this is who I am and I'm going to marry a man and have kids and just do this thing.
Okay.
When I lay down in the bed, the Holy Spirit blew into the room.
I'll never forget this.
It felt like a wind blew into the room and hit me.
Wow.
And I heard the voice of God say to me, get up out of this bed.
You're not coming back home.
(20:32):
I said, what?
And he goes, get up out of this bed, drive up there.
You're not coming back home.
Well, my grandma now walks into the bedroom.
I think she probably felt something too.
And she walks in my bedroom, she's in her night gown and she can, and I tell her what I
heard.
She goes, well, that's God speaking to you.
You should drive up there.
I said, how?
I love this woman.
Yeah.
(20:53):
I said, how?
It's 11, 30 at night.
How are they still there?
At this point, I've been to a couple of revival nights as a kid.
There you are.
Don't I stay and open that late.
Yeah.
And so she goes, no, you need to get up there.
Now my heart's pounding out of my chest.
I get, I call my cousin to drive me up there.
The closer that we get to the event, I have never experienced this.
(21:17):
I was weeping so hard in the car uncontrollably.
I was bent over.
My hands were shaking.
I was bawling and I could just feel the power of God just hitting me.
When we pulled up in the parking lot, they were still there.
The parking lot was completely full and it was one of those trash or idle nights.
(21:40):
So people brought things they were bound with and they were throwing them out the altar.
So there's like crack at the altar.
There's weed.
There's porn magazines.
There's corn albums.
All the things that people listen to.
And people were laying out in the grass weeping and crying.
I got out of the cart and sprinted to the stage.
(22:02):
As I'm sprinting, the leader of the ministry sees me from the stage, hops off the stage and
runs to me.
And I just collapse in his arm and I'm like screaming into his chest, grabbing him in his
back and squeezing his back.
And I said, if you don't get me out of here and take me with you, I'm going to literally
die here.
And he goes, the Lord told me you're supposed to come with my ministry.
(22:24):
So I ended up trying.
Go ahead.
You hadn't told him anything at that point.
It was just he saw me be lining it.
I was sprinting with all my mind.
My cousin was freaked out because I left her in the car.
He saw me from the altar and he said he could just see the Holy Spirit on me in the desperation.
And I just recorded all this with him.
(22:44):
We just recorded everything and taught through it.
And even he was like remembering it all.
I said, whoa, you know, because it was so many years ago.
Yeah.
How many years ago was that?
That was 2009.
Okay.
So I ended up from there going with him for three years as his personal assistant, travel
(23:05):
the world with him.
And that was amazing.
I experienced God the entire time.
I was living celibate.
I really wasn't thinking about same sex attraction.
I was just traveling the road with that ministry, working as his personal assistant and experiencing
the Lord.
Wow.
What a gift.
(23:25):
Yeah.
And then from there, were you just free forever?
So what happens is I leave the ministry because I want to go back to college.
Yeah.
And I had gotten so many prophecies while traveling with him about all these things I'd be doing
with the Lord that I'm now doing.
Okay.
(23:46):
This is really pivotal.
I want to go back to college.
Yeah.
I want to go back to college.
There was a selfish reason for this.
I wanted to finally prove to the world to people.
I can do this.
I'm going to go to school and I just had this idea.
I'm going to make a lot of money.
For two years after living the ministry, I was doing super great.
(24:08):
I was living pure all this.
I go to my university in St. Louis at the time.
I'm living with my spiritual family.
Now let me stay with them.
So I'm staying in their house.
Because I'm there slowly but surely I ended up starting to love the attention I was getting.
And so what happens is I start reading my Bible.
(24:31):
I stopped praying and I was going to a local church actually.
And what used to be exciting to share that I'm no longer gay ended up becoming a grievance.
Because at the local church I was attending, when I would share, I would start to feel
a little back and go away from certain people.
(24:51):
Now because I battled with my identity in some areas, I could have 20 friends that were
super excited.
But if I had one good friend out of those 20 that you felt them start back and go away
or their wife was like, "Do you think Justin's flirting with you?"
And I would hear these rumors.
And they would hurt my feelings.
(25:11):
I'm like, "I'm not flirting with him."
All guys hug each other.
I'm a very huggy person.
I wasn't flirting with him.
I really wasn't.
I was literally living pure.
No pornography, nothing.
So what happens is I end up imploding inside like this sucks.
Being apart of the local church sucks.
Or so judgmental.
It was easy when I traveled on the road because I got to leave churches each night and
(25:33):
not have to stay back and deal with this bull crop.
And I was sick of it.
So I stopped going to church and then guess what happens.
The world at my university accepts me just for being there.
I'm not falling back into homosexuality yet.
And I'm like, "Whoa, my worldly friends are ex-I'm loving being with them.
(25:55):
We're going to bars, we're drinking.
I joined the military.
All my military friends are accepting me.
I'm like, "Why are all of these friends so much more fun to be around than my church
friends at my local church?"
And my local church I was going to had a lot of young adults.
And I was not enjoying my time there.
Not because we weren't going out and drinking.
It didn't feel like that family type of violence the church should be feeling like.
(26:18):
It just felt very judgmental in some ways.
And so I just was not enjoying it because when I traveled with that ministry, it was very
family oriented.
I was still very close with those people today.
And so long story short, basically drinking, smoking weed.
I'm getting lots of attention.
(26:39):
I joined student government at my school.
So I'm pretty popular on campus.
And this has always been my life.
I was pretty popular in high school.
I was popular in the military.
I was popular on my campus.
I'm getting all this favor, all this attention.
I was close with a chancellor of my university.
I mean, it was crazy.
Close to my professors.
(27:00):
And long story short, I basically go to a party one night.
And there's a guy there that was exactly my type.
And I didn't know if he was gay or not.
Next thing I know we're in the bed together.
We're flirting that whole night.
I fully go back into it.
What was different this time was I was finally getting accepted because before I had never
came out.
(27:21):
All those times we talked up to this point.
Yeah.
I've not came out.
Now I'm coming out on campus.
And now and now same-sex marriage is approved.
So now I'm about 23 at this point.
And this is around 2015.
So five years of freedom.
Experiencing what the church is making me feel like.
(27:42):
It awakened my insecurities about myself, my frustrations with the church.
I end up making excuses for not standing with the Lord and letting him do the work and
running to him in prayer and dialogue with him and calling people and confess saying,
"Hey, I'm floating right now.
This is what I'm experiencing being in a local church right now."
(28:04):
And that local church doesn't, because I want to make sure this is to include people
who are watching, that small local church does not mean that that is the body of Christ
at large.
Right.
Because I'm now seeing several people in the body of Christ that super love me and I'm
super accepted in the body of Christ.
And where I'm going with this is those three or four or five people at that local church
(28:26):
that I created a mindset around, I let them be my God.
And there opinions be my God and that matters into my own hands.
You know what I'm saying?
Oh, yeah.
I think that happens way more often.
I think a lot of people build their faith on the few people in the church, not always.
I know that there are broken systems, broken churches, broken people breaking more people.
(28:49):
Right.
Yes.
That's part of it.
But I do.
I see it a lot.
A lot.
That people are like these three people hurt me in the church.
Shame on the church.
Exactly.
Maybe I should find some new friends or bring this to them or bring it.
It's like we're just so focused on our brokenness, on our shame that we let our shame tell
(29:11):
us what to do instead of, instead of going to the word, instead of going to God and seeking
forgiveness and even seeking understanding, which, and not allowing their opinions to be
your God.
Yes.
Because where are these five people at now?
I don't even know these people are.
We're not even friends.
Like I've moved so far on my life, but I allowed their perceptions of me to dictate why I walked
(29:37):
away.
And now I walk away from the, I don't walk, I won't say I walk away from the Lord.
I was still hungry for the Lord during this times.
But now that I became accepted by the world in college, I'm like, whoa, I'm loving this.
Yeah.
Then I get my first boyfriend for three years.
Madly, it was madly in love with him.
We just had great times together.
(29:58):
There were some issues for sure.
And I would get convicted in the relationship.
But basically I ended up having this season of 2015 until 2023, where I'm basically fully
out gay, going to Pride events.
I mean, the devil gave me the best of the best, like Disney World literally.
(30:22):
At a gay Pride event in Chicago, what made my boyfriend literally, we won a contest just
by taking a picture with your, your, your, your, your significant other, literally one
or short to Disney World.
Well, that's fun.
Right.
But like my thing is it's like the enemy was just giving me exactly what I wanted to keep
you right where you were.
(30:43):
Yeah, exactly.
And so basically I just like, I just go fully into this thing.
And I would get convicted alone the way.
Yeah.
Like the Holy Spirit would be speaking to me and say, this is not what I have for you.
There'd be times I would be in the middle of having sex with a guy and the Holy Spirit would
say to me, get out of this room now and go home.
(31:03):
Did you?
Well, what would happen is I would feel a Holy fear come over me.
And I couldn't finish having sex.
I would roll over in the bed and the guy I was willing to be like, what's going on?
I don't know.
I'm just not really feeling it right now.
And so we would just cuddle my heart's pounding out of my chest.
And I'm like, I hear his voice again.
You need to go home.
This is not what I have for you.
(31:25):
And I ran home and I was actually dating this guy.
I run home.
This was a different boyfriend from the one from three.
We had broken up.
But like this is just like showing you like how God was still chasing me down to give encouragement
to families watching that it may look like it's Rambo's and butterflies when they're seeing
their children backslidden.
And if they've been raising the Lord, the Lord is still chasing them down.
(31:48):
Why?
I know this for a fact because there's several guys I slept with that would roll over
in bed and say to me, do you believe God is real?
God would not allow me to enjoy the sex.
We would get finished having sex.
And I'm like, I just wanted to have sex.
Now you're asking me Bible questions.
And I never said I was a Christian to them, but I knew that was God doing that.
(32:10):
Or then guys would say to me when we were like hanging out, not just after we had sex,
but just when I was dating some guys.
And they would say, what is your thoughts?
Do you think this is right for us to be together like this?
Wow.
Do you think that God is like real and like, this is wrong?
I would have so many gay men say this to me during my backslidden season.
(32:32):
And I felt like God was making me so uncomfortable the entire time.
And it would be like, this would happen over and over and over and over and over and over.
These top of conversations would happen.
And I would be like, I know you're trying to get my attention, but I don't know how to
get out of this.
Yeah.
Like, I don't, I'm not attracted to women.
(32:52):
That was my main excuse.
Yeah.
Like, I'm not attracted to women.
What do you want me to do?
Yeah.
Well, clearly he's not wanting me to be having sex like this.
Yeah.
And clearly he's not wanting me to be addicted to pornography and go into parties and drinking
now, smoking weed.
And so, you know, you have these situations happening that I kept justifying, but still
deep down inside, I wanted God because at this point, I've experienced him my whole entire
(33:16):
life.
But during this backslidden season, I was running from him.
But also still running to him.
So there'd be times all my way to have a hook up.
I'd be in the car crying saying, Lord, if you stop the car or have the guy text me, I'll
just turn around and I'll go back home because I don't really don't want to do this.
(33:36):
And like it wouldn't stop and I'd go and still do do the thing and then go back home and
just feel completely like in the middle of the sex, it feels great.
Sure.
But then when I would get back home, I'd feel completely lonely and completely unsatisfied.
Isn't that true with any, any sin, any, I would say especially sexual sin, not whether
(33:57):
a hetero outside of marriage, pornography.
When is that not the outcome?
This is so great for a minute.
A minute.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Yeah.
And then it's, it leaves you with emptiness and sorrow and why did I do that?
Exactly.
Who am I hurting?
How am I benefiting?
How is this bringing any goodness into my life?
(34:19):
Could we go back real quick to your, your boyfriend's that you had for three years?
Would you, would you share what you prayed before you met him?
Yeah.
So I at this point, I'm like, haven't had a boyfriend yet.
(34:39):
And I was in prayer one day or maybe I was just venting to God.
I don't think I was, I wasn't like, oh my knees like Jesus.
Yeah.
I mean, it's really the same.
I should share.
I was just saying out loud.
I do not know how to not be gay.
I'm angry.
I've heard several gay people say this to me that are still gay.
(34:59):
I prayed that prayer, nothing's changed.
And I remember I said, I don't know how to not be gay.
And I remember just like getting so passionate, I was like, can you please send me a gay man
that has the same morals and values like me and at least knows God.
So I can have someone I can talk about with God.
(35:20):
Because at this point, I've just kind of slept with men that I don't know what their religious
backgrounds were.
Yeah.
And we had great times together and sin.
And so it was like literally, after I said that prayer, remember laying down and going to
bed.
And I don't know how to tell you that I knew that I knew that when I prayed that or said
that out loud, that God was going to give me what I wanted to teach me a lesson.
(35:44):
And so what ends up happening is maybe a week later, I'm on Tinder and I see this guy's
profile pop up.
And it was like kind of glowing to me.
Like there's something about this, like the smile, the face, they just look so happy and
so kind and legit.
(36:07):
And the bio was exactly verbatim what I prayed.
And my twisted mind is like, God has given me what I asked for.
Knowing scripturally, that's not true.
Yeah.
Oh, I feel the spirit.
And I matched with him.
He actually super liked me.
(36:28):
We went hung out on the first date.
We're both weeping, like crying tearing up because we were literally sharing the same heartbeat.
Something got so intertwined into both of us.
Now he wasn't at the same level Christian wise as me.
He was Catholic.
So we had a lot of theological differences.
And then shortly, shortly after we started dating, the Christianity aspect of him starts
(36:53):
dying out.
And he's like, I just don't know if I've been believing God anymore.
And he went to a Christian school as well.
So we had some of the same similar stories.
He wasn't my less than a cicada and thing like that.
But I fell in love with him and I fell in love with his family.
So I got super close with him.
We went on trips together.
I was really embedded into his family.
And I wanted to marry him.
(37:13):
This was like, I was in love.
This was the boyfriend that we both got sent to Disney World together.
And so there was lots of things that were wrong.
That was happening.
But I'm thinking to my mom, this is like any couple you argue at the beginning.
And he almost hit on me one time and I'm like, okay, you know, we'll work through it.
I was trying to instill biblical principles that God has ordained for a man and a woman
(37:39):
into a same sex relationship.
It does not work.
It does not work.
Two men being together emotionally.
We both have egos at the same level.
There was no like cow-towing to each other or like, or, you know, like a woman.
Like when I see a man and a woman together, biologically, you see the woman submit to
(38:02):
her husband and not in an abuse of submissive way, but as Christ loves the church top away,
letting the husband lead.
But with this relationship, it's like our energies were just matched at a high level.
And we were just doing the exact same thing.
It's like we were becoming each other, which is really unhealthy.
(38:24):
Because he wanted me to do things that he wanted me to do for him.
So it ends up getting to, basically, at the end of the relationship.
He was on distance.
I was about to graduate college.
I was going to relocate to live with him and relocate to that state.
And that's when things took a turn.
(38:45):
I fly out there.
And the whole time I'm just feeling very, something's feeling weird.
I was feeling in my spirit.
Something wasn't right with his relationship.
And when people limit Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit can talk to you in the middle of anything.
I know multiple people who God has talked to while they're in the middle of sin.
(39:09):
So as we're having sex, I hear the Holy Spirit say to me, "You've been deceived about this
whole relationship.
This is the first time I heard God actually talk to me that clearly in this relationship.
Because up until this point, I was living a blissful, loving relationship.
And sometimes just because the Lord is silent doesn't mean he's not ready to speak at the
(39:31):
right time.
I love how God interjects when he knows when he's supposed to.
And we see that a lot in the Old Testament with Israel.
He knows perfectly when to speak up and confront.
And God says to me, "You've been cheated on several times."
So after we have sex, I roll over in bed.
(39:52):
I'm sick to my stomach.
He puts his arm in my shoulder and I can tell he's like, "Well, what's going on?"
I roll over in bed and I'm like, "Have you been talking to someone else?"
He goes, "No."
I was like, "Are you sure?"
I said, "Something just feels off.
Even when we had sex that night, our souls weren't connected."
I was like, "I could just tell."
(40:13):
And I was like, "Are you sure?
I feel like you have."
And then it's up coming out.
He was having an emotional connection with someone in that state and was pursuing this individual
and cheating.
Well, you would think because God spoke to me.
This was like 2019 before the pandemic happened.
(40:36):
You would think that would have woken me up.
I literally was so depressed when I got home.
We ended it.
We tried to make it work, but I was like, "I can't.
I'm not moving to a different state to be with someone that's going to cheat."
And I wanted a monochemist relationship.
I wanted what you read in the Bible, but with a man.
Yeah, you wanted a biblical homosexual marriage, which...
(40:59):
And I began to realize when I got a lot of my gay friends, lesbians are straight people.
Lesbians, straight people, because I don't want to demonize just gay people with this.
Sure.
Yeah.
I began to realize straight couples, lesbian couples, two men that are married, whatever,
that I began to realize I was meeting so many people that were opening up their marriages.
(41:20):
And I'm like, "Is monogamy dying?"
You know what I'm saying?
And so I began to be like, "Whoa."
And I was just like, "I just don't know what I want to do."
So then the pandemic happens.
No one...
I don't know who was actually hooking up during that time.
You know what I'm saying?
They gave parameters on how to have sex during the...
(41:40):
I was too terrified.
Do it six feet apart.
Exactly.
I was too terrified.
So basically during the pandemic, I basically just became gay and celibate, not going to
church and was basically trapped in the house for a year and launched my photography business
at that time because so many people were getting married at home and I was making so much
(42:00):
money.
Yeah.
And we're shooting tons of gay weddings.
So now I'm shooting gay weddings.
And I could tell that my Christian friends around me was like, "You okay?"
You know, like, "What?"
Yeah.
No, but I was making good money.
Yeah.
I was a lover of money.
Yeah.
That's part of my testimony.
Yeah.
I was making good money.
(42:21):
Yeah.
Good money.
And I loved it.
Yeah.
You know, looking back at it now, you know, it was wrong.
But essentially, I go through all of that and that's when I end up moving to Seattle and
now we're 2021 to 2023, which you know what happens in 2023.
But essentially when I moved to Seattle, I moved there to be gay and I know that
(42:44):
several gay people live there and several gay weddings happen there.
I moved there from my business to prosper and it did.
I moved there because I got a new job and it made a lot of money with that job.
So I moved there.
So my closest friends are already out there and I love hiking.
So I moved to the West Coast to finally be happy to be gay.
(43:04):
Yeah.
And when I lived out there, it was like two years of just...
And I say this loosely because this was when I was in the world.
But it was the best two years of my gay lifestyle apart from God.
And just living how I wanted to live.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(43:25):
Which is not fruitful, not fulfilling.
So even in the midst of you living your best life, was it really your best life?
No.
I mean, that would be completely drawn coming back from parties having hangovers.
Yeah.
You're in the midst of it.
It's like you're laughing with your friends the next morning.
(43:45):
Yeah.
You got plastered and we're laughing.
But like inside you're like, I really feel like crap.
Yeah.
But you remember these memories and like you're puking.
Yeah.
That was fun.
I was like a volleyball team, a gay football team.
I had all the friends you can imagine.
You know, I'm making as much money as possible.
You know, my photography business was growing out there.
(44:06):
Yeah.
And I'm meeting just all these friends.
Like, I was like in the end crowds.
Yeah.
Like saying always put me in the end crowds.
Yeah.
Where I just was like the center of attention and like I just got all the attention.
Yeah.
I mean, he knew what you needed and he knew what you were looking for, which was acceptance.
Exactly.
He's like, I'll give you that.
(44:26):
And I'm going to keep you right here.
Exactly.
And you're going to think that you're full.
Exactly.
You have everything you need, that you're content, that you're satisfied, but we're not.
We're never going to be satisfied in anything of this world.
We just aren't.
No matter what.
Okay.
So what brought you out of those best two years of your gay life?
(44:49):
Yeah.
So near the end, last July, I was dating.
2023.
Yeah.
I was dating someone that my friends and his friends were like, you two need to be together.
You don't want exactly the exact same thing.
It was basically a replica of the three year relationship.
(45:15):
And I was like, this is awesome.
So we're together.
I'm going to skip past a lot with this to get to the usual story.
But long story short, I go visit him.
So now I'm flying out of Seattle to go visit him at his state.
Now it's a repeat.
And he's going to move to his state with him because he can't leave due to just his job.
(45:36):
Okay.
Like when my job is flexible, I'm like, I'm in love with you.
I wouldn't move, but I would move for you.
We even talked about weddings and marriage.
And we were only, we had only been talking for like three months, long distance.
And I'm like, this is crazy.
And so long story short, I'm at his house.
And I'm like, that weekend, it was planned for us to be dating.
(46:00):
And I said, well, before I agree to be your boyfriend, I have to ask you a question
because I'm nervous about asking you this.
And this will really determine a lot.
Have you been hooking up with other people while we've been talking?
It literally looked like a demonic spirit took over his face.
Wow.
And he literally looked at me and said, are you that beep and stupid?
(46:23):
That you wouldn't think that I was hooking up with other people or haven't even hooking
up with other people?
And I said, no, we were talking about monogamy.
We were talking about all these things.
It goes, yeah, you're right.
But not until we're official.
I said, so how many people have been hooking up with?
He goes, I don't know how many to tell you.
(46:43):
So I'm like sick to my stomach.
I'm pissed.
So I'm like packing my stuff.
I'm getting out of there.
He's screaming, hollering loses.
It slams the front door.
It won't let me out the front door.
We're arguing.
It was very toxic.
We're making out.
Then I'm pushing him off of me.
I said, no, I'm pissed.
Just that crazy, tumultuous, like you're in a abusive relationship type thing.
(47:05):
And we just had this crazy dynamic.
And I just was like, I got, but what was going on my head was, I've already been through
this.
And you're going to trick me through this entire relationship.
If we get together, you're going to ask me, let's open it up, let's bring someone else
in.
And I feel like you lied to me and tricked me, right?
So I ended up flying home early.
(47:27):
I'm like, I got to get back home.
As I get back home, my roommates says, I know you just got back, but I need to speak with
you.
And I'm like, okay, what's going on?
She goes, well, you know, I'm talking to this new girl.
This is my best friend, like for three years in Seattle.
And she goes, you don't like her.
And I said, yeah, I really don't, because she had a lot going on.
(47:50):
I just didn't like her because I didn't like her.
Yeah.
I didn't like the situation.
That was causing.
And I was seeing my friend getting involved in something that could be very toxic for
her.
Right.
So I was really protecting my best friend.
Whatever she says to me, to salvage our friendship, I think you should move out.
I don't want to live with you.
I want to stay your best friend where she screwed me because my lease was ending in 20 days.
(48:16):
It's really hard to find another apartment in 20 days.
At the time, I did not know that the Lord was ordaining all of this to get me out of this
lifestyle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When she says this to me, I say back to her.
I don't say back to her, but I say out loud.
Yeah.
(48:36):
I was like, it really feels like God, you're shoving all these doors in my life.
Yeah.
And she makes a comment and goes, well, maybe he is.
Well, I'm looking at her like, I could say the same things to you.
I'm pissed.
I'm pissed.
Yeah.
You literally went behind my back with the other roommate to basically get me out of the
(48:57):
house.
And you're my best friend and you didn't have enough balls or whatever.
You know, coffin is whatever to say to me, this is probably what should happen.
You basically screwed me over, but it was really the Lord.
Yeah.
I go upstairs to my bedroom and I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and I'm like, God, it
(49:17):
really feels like you're closing everything.
This is so weird.
I feel you doing something and I said, there was no wars yet.
Yeah.
I didn't even know what I was praying.
I was really prophesying my deliverance and these words leave my mouth.
My grandma always told me to never turn your back on the nation of Israel.
(49:41):
And I'll know when something happens to Israel, you're close to coming back and I don't want
to be left behind.
I don't want to be separated from you.
And when something happens to them, I will know that's a cue for me to get fully out of
this lifestyle.
And when was this early September?
(50:03):
And the reason I know is because I had bought tickets to Beyonce and she was coming to Seattle
and my friends were flying into town and I went to that concert after singing that prayer.
And I was actually feeling apprehensive about it, but I still went because I had friends
coming in the town.
I'm not going to cancel them.
Then they bought tickets.
(50:23):
Yeah.
I go to the concert, which was a very gay, centric album Renaissance.
I listened to it almost every day, very gay forward, very intimate songs.
And she was one of my music icons along with several others.
I loved R&B music, just anything that was really passionate, loved me.
(50:44):
And so in the middle of all that, I go to the concert and I'm like, I'm still feeling
the anxiety that I know the Lord's closing doors.
And I'm like, I just got to make it past this weekend.
We'll go to Beyonce or friends will fly home.
So I go and shoot a wedding.
I have two weddings left.
So now we're like getting to the end of September.
I'm shooting this wedding.
As I'm shooting the wedding, somebody plugged in a coffee pod that apparently malfunctioned
(51:09):
and the steam was oversteaming out of the water area.
And it reached up and hit this fire alarm.
When it hit the fire alarm, people laugh at this point, but I don't care because this is,
I mean, I've seen people online laugh at this, but this is so accurate for me.
This was how Holy Spirit spoke to me.
That fire alarm went off.
(51:29):
And when I tell you my soul went off inside, something opened up and awakened and it felt
like a 911 emergency in the Spirit realm.
And I hear the Lord speak to me, not like, oh, I'm good.
He's like, audible, but it was like in my head.
Yeah.
In your soul.
(51:49):
And when he spoke, my entire being responded.
And as I was hearing him, he goes, the alarm is going to go off a second time.
And I'm going to speak to you and show you something.
I said, there's absolutely no way because when this fire alarm went off, the local fire
department had to come off, come out to turn off the alarm.
(52:12):
This is a whole big thing.
Yeah.
And this was out of wedding.
And this was during the setup, during the wedding.
Okay.
So they're not walking down the aisle or running out.
Yeah.
Well, guess what happens?
If God actually is real and he actually talks and speaks, then what he says will come to pass.
And it has came to pass.
Several scriptures have came to pass.
(52:34):
Well, what about what about when God is speaking to you something and it comes to pass?
Well, guess what?
Exactly what God told me came to pass.
The fire alarm goes off a second time in less than 15 minutes.
When I see it go off my mouth hits the floor, I'm like, oh, my goodness.
And the Holy Spirit says, look at your phone.
I want to show you something.
(52:56):
When I tell you, when I turn my phone over, it was already vibrating.
Yeah.
I don't know what was going on.
It was like, most of the notifications.
When I turned my phone over, it literally said breaking news.
Hamas has attacked Israel on its high holy day at the very moment, at the very second,
the very prayer I prayed came to pass.
(53:20):
I ran out of that church, ran to the side of the building and began to weep and cry.
And it wasn't tears of joy.
It was tears of, it's like my whole life flashed before me.
And I was like, I have fumbled.
My entire life, I'm embarrassed.
I'm ashamed.
I know you have to be ashamed of me.
(53:42):
I have fumbled every prophecy you've spoken over me.
Yeah.
I have become such a sexual addict.
I go to parties.
I've lost my mind.
And I've justified my lifestyle of how I'm living as if I'm probably still the Christian.
I have a lot of theological views.
(54:02):
I don't believe in what saved always saved.
But I don't believe you can walk away from Christ immediately.
I believe I was very backslidden and I was convinced that I was going to heaven.
Yeah.
I didn't look like Christ at all.
I'm weeping out there and I say these words.
You're not going to say to me, well, doing good and faithful servant.
(54:24):
The same voice I just heard speak to me is not talking to me any longer.
It's dead silence.
This goes on for two weeks.
I'm leaving with my two gay best friends at the time while I'm transitioning to find
an apartment back in Seattle.
The Holy Spirit actually told me to move in with my gay best friends temporarily.
(54:47):
And that boomerangs back around because God is infinite in wisdom and sees all.
And he knows exactly why that happened because they saw me get delivered and their mouths
hit the floor.
So God was having me stay with them.
I didn't know that at the time.
Why even I said, this is going to sound weird to people.
When I tell them the Holy Spirit told me to move in with my two gay best friends, there
(55:10):
are awesome people.
Kind hearts.
I love them to this day.
I just don't agree with how they're living biblically.
Not because I just and gets to determine.
The Bible determines this and I align with God's work as a love God.
But I don't hate them.
I've not ostracized them.
(55:32):
But what I'm going with this is I ended up living with them.
I have to fly out to shoot my last and final wedding in St. Louis.
And I said, this is it.
All of my events that are connected to worldly stuff.
Weddings where people are getting just plastered.
(55:54):
This is the final wedding of the year in October.
I had one more concert with my best friend, like Lord just had me get through this last
concert.
I know you're not pleased with me with this.
And I went to the concert with her and we had a blast.
Because I, but inside I'm like, I know I'm not supposed to be here.
God forgive me.
And then I go to tell my spiritual family.
And when I got there, I began to just dump.
(56:16):
And they already knew.
They've been praying for me.
They knew.
They knew I was backslidden.
I manipulated them and lied.
But they know they have the Holy Spirit.
They're very, they're two people that hear the voice of God.
And they have been crying out for me.
They just didn't fully have to call me and say anything.
Yeah.
And long story short, I go through a 30 day journey with the Lord where I get stuck in St.
(56:38):
Louis and the Lord delivers me from homosexuality.
Thank you guys so much for being here today and joining us for this conversation with Justin
Bristol.
If you are watching on YouTube, please like, subscribe, comment, let us know you're here.
Let us know what you think.
If you have any questions or comments, you can email us at sup.
(57:07):
That's sup@stuffgodneversaid.com.
And you can find us on Instagram @stuffgodneversaid.
And make sure to tune in for part two.
[Music]
[Music]
(57:30):
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!