Does God change gay people into straight people?

Well, it depends on what you mean by "healing."

For many gay/SSA people who directly or indirectly interacted with the pray-the-gay-away movement of the late 1900s, pastors and therapists promised that God would completely eliminate their same-sex attractions and replace them with robust general opposite-sex attractions if gay/SSA people prayed hard enough or went to enough counseling.

That's what "healing" or "change" meant (and still means) to generations of gay/SSA people. That's what they were taught to hope, pray, and work for regarding their sexuality.

So, does that kind of healing happen?

Scientific analysis found that 96% of people who participated in "sexual orientation change efforts" experienced no meaningful reduction in their same-sex attractions or increase in their general opposite sex attractions.

However, those same efforts were found to increase participants’ likelihood of attempting suicide by 92%.

Does God have the power to perform miracles? Yes! Do I believe the testimonies of some who say their SSAs have been completely, miraculously replaced by general OSAs? Yes!

Christians can hope and pray for miracles. At the same time, it would be dangerously irresponsible for Christian leaders to build their strategy for LGBT+ ministry around an expectation that the average gay/SSA person will experience a miracle.

But there is another kind of healing that SSA Christians (and every other Christian) can expect.

In the Scriptures, God promises every Christian that if we lean into our sanctification, He will give us increasing strength to resist temptations of all kinds.

The frequency or magnitude of our temptations may not change (remember the thorn in Paul's side), but the Holy Spirit can empower us to be increasingly faithful to resist temptations.

In my life, counseling, prayer, and spiritual disciplines assigned by my pastors have helped with that. So have meeting my intimacy needs in healthy ways and adding practical restrictions/blocks to my devices.

If that's considered "healing" and "change" of my sexuality, then YES, change is not only possible, but promised!

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