Today is National Coming Out Day, which feels like as good a day as ever to share more publicly that I’m bisexual. Though this has been my experience for as long as I can remember, I was only able to name it as such midway through college. And as someone who’s deeply committed to following Jesus for the rest of my life, I’ve had to very seriously reconsider what he actually taught about sexuality and marriage in light of the forcefulness of my own experience.

As I’ve laboriously considered Jesus’s teaching in recent years, along with that of the rest of the Bible, I’ve come to the firm conclusion that the historic Christian sexual ethic, which defines marriage as a monogamous union of two people of the opposite sex (i.e., two people who are sexually different), still represents the most faithful interpretation of Jesus’s teaching on marriage and sexuality. As such, though I experience romantic attraction to both women and men, I have ruled out for myself the possibility of marrying (or dating) a man based on this theological conviction. While some might see this as oppressive or self-hating, I haven’t found it to be; instead, I‘ve found deep meaning, purpose, life, and joy in following this unique call of God on what’s been termed “Side B.” And I’ve learned to rest in the incomparable love of the God who calls me his own, who delights in me, who affirms me, and who sings over me because he just can’t contain all the joy he has for me, his beloved child.

But despite not being oppressive or hateful, God still calls me to very hard things, and living out my sexuality according to this ethic is indeed a hard thing. For the foreseeable future if not the rest of my life, when I start to develop romantic feelings for a man, I’ve decided I won’t take the next step and ask, “would you want to go on a date sometime?” Because try as I might to convince myself of the truth of the interpretation of Scripture that would allow for such a next step, I still find the alternative interpretation much more compelling. But thankfully, even as God calls me to do hard things like this in my life, he also empowers me to walk them out through his Spirit, which he’s given to me and which lives inside me—really!—giving me supernatural energy and desire to follow him. And at the end of the day, Jesus calls me to lay down my entire life for him, so if he’s not worth surrendering something as massive and central to my experience of life as my sexuality, what is he worth? And if I really believe that Jesus came to bring abundant life for everyone (John 10:10) and that that life is the truest, best, and most beautiful version of life possible for any of us (which I emphatically do believe), then I am compelled to believe that he knows better than me, despite what I feel in my heart and in my body.

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So there you have it: I’m bisexual, with a bit of a clarification. If you’d like to know or learn more about my experience, 1) feel free to ask me (though I can’t promise an answer to everyone or every question)—I’d rather you do that than wonder about or assume something or ask someone else to speak for me; and 2) stay tuned! I plan to write plenty more about this in the future. But for now, in the immortal words of Diana Ross, “I’m coming out!”

~MR