Jesus, Even if it Kills Me, I will Follow You
Meet Jim.
We had the opportunity to interview our friend, Jim Farrington at a recent conference. In this recording, he tells about the incredible personal encounter with Jesus that led to a complete transformation is his life.
Our favorite part of Jim’s story is when he finally broke down and said, “Jesus, even if it kills me, I’m going to follow you.” This moment of complete and total surrender to Jesus changed everything for Jim, as it has for so many others.
For context, Jim works for First Stone Ministries – an organization that helps lead the sexually and relationally broken into a liberating relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. You can learn more about First Stone Ministries at firststone.org.
The interview that follows is authentic and beautiful, but it is also real and raw. It contains details that may be difficult for some readers.
Nevertheless, Jim’s story is an amazing testimony to the work that Jesus can do when we surrender to Him.
May each of us to lay down everything before the one who offers us the only way to abundant life.
TRANSCRIPT:It's been a real journey and it's still an ongoing journey and I don't think it ever stops when we truly encountered Jesus Christ. I came out of a background of horrible childhood sexual abuse that took place from around the age of six, about 14 years of age, and exposure to pornography at age eight and then being molested, those things kind of contributed to taking on a homosexual identity. And I remember at age 12 thinking, I must be this way because this keeps happening to me. And by the time I was 15 years old, my entire paradigm of human relating and human sexuality came from the molestation. And there were some women involved in that molestation, but the majority of it were men.
And the reason why that's really crucial is because I had absolutely zero relationship with my father. At nine years of age, I made an inner vow, a very, very awful inner vow that I would never ever trust my father again. There was a betrayal that took place. And what I did effectively was cut myself off from my father in every way possible, including his masculinity. And boys need their father. They need that relationship that shows him, how to be a man, how to make decisions, how to engage in the future or get married, balance a checkbook, establish what career you're going to do. I had nothing like that. At some point my parents walked away from me emotionally. And so in a sense it was like I was abandoned, but I was taken care of. I had clothes on my back, I had a roof over my head, I had food in my belly and that was their best for me. But I was a complete stranger other than that.
And so my identity was really found in the arms of the men that were abusing me. And so I went into my young adulthood with that mindset and then God began to intervene, brought a really awesome friend of mine into my life that she just shared the gospel with me about my homosexuality. And I had never really heard it like that before. And I went home that night from my job, and I had this sensation in my chest knowing something unique had happened. And so a series of events happened. I ended up coming to Jesus. And then I had a friend in my life that we had had relations on and off for the last three years. And so there was a baby in the picture and the church was saying, okay, you're a Christian man now and you need to marry that lady and raise your family. And so I did what I was told. But the problem with that is I never dealt with any of the ramifications from the abuse.
And so in the three years that we were together as a couple, were just... It was a disaster because I didn't know what it meant to be in a covenant marriage. And I wasn't present in my heart for her as she was for me. And she got wounded. And so we split up in '87. She went back into lesbianism. I went back into homosexuality. But it was during that time that I had really fully surrendered to homosexuality. I was proud. I was out. I had the sticker on my car. I was flamboyant. I was in your face with my life. And of course I worked in a restaurant industry, so it was like... There's a saying that in the LGBTQ community, we're queer, we're here, get over it. And that was kind of my mentality.
And the Lord brought people into my life that began to share their gospel with me by their lives. They never engaged with me and said that the way that you're living is sin. I never had that conversation, but the way that they love me, I knew the truth. And I always knew it was sin, but I just didn't know what to do with this thing that I had in my life that I had no control over, it seemed. And I had one particular night, this lady I was waiting on. I wasn't even supposed to be her server. This is how God is. I wasn't even supposed to be her server, but I ended up being her server. And she said, you're going to think I'm crazy, but God's trying to get your attention and he wants to talk to you a way a father wants to talk to his child. And I looked at her just about to just ball. And I'm like, you're not crazy.
And I had her write that down and I have it laminated. And you know what it says? It says the father of all creations is calling your name, and it's a serious matter. And it was like, I know God is doing something. And that really helped me to begin to turn my heart, my attention toward the Father. And it brought me to place that... And being able to look at the landscape of the homosexual community, the life that I had built, and realizing that it didn't offer me anything. I didn't see real joy, real peace, real happiness with anyone. And eventually the Lord was wooing me. And here's another thing too. People don't realize this. God is reaching out to people that are broken and hurting and in sin and in wickedness. And I knew that the Lord was pursuing me. I didn't know what to do with it because my real father never pursued me.
And there is something to that. The relationship with the father really makes a difference in terms of being able to relate to the Father. And I came to that point where I finally just yielded to Him and said, if it kills me, I'm going to follow you. And it wasn't my intent when I yielded to Him. It wasn't my intent to walk from homosexuality to heterosexuality. I just knew I was following Jesus and whatever he had for me, that's what I'm going for. And so over the period of the next year or so, and in filling my heart full of truth, I began to pursue books by Tozer and Finney and Spurgeon. And I knew within 24 hours of making that declaration, Jesus was at work in my life because I no longer felt the compelling pull to go with my friends to the bar.
They come to my apartment because everybody I work with, we all partied at the same bars and smoke the same cigarettes and corralled together, got drunk together, whatever. And for the first time, I didn't want any of that. And they would stop by my apartment. I'm like, that's not who I am. I don't want anything to do with that anymore.
And eventually God took me to Des Moines. My mom had a tumor, five tumors on her spine and the Lord... And through prayer led me to move to Des Moines. It was there that God really began to restore to me my masculinity. And one of the biggest things that happened was that I forgave my father. When I forgave my father, it was because the Lord allowed me to see him through his eyes. And I realized for the first time that none of that stuff had ever had been intentional on my dad's part against me. And I found myself having mercy and compassion on him. And when I did that, all those things I resisted in my father, I began to realize I have in myself.
And then on top of that, one of the most beautiful things that happened to me is that the Lord showed me through the word, the word is very important. The Lord showed me that I was created heterosexually and that I only struggled with homosexual sin. And that enabled me to be able to actually take that thing that had plagued me all of my life and put it at the foot of the cross and let Jesus have it and then in turn receive from Him, everything that I needed to begin to walk in a manner or worthy of the calling with which I've been called. And that meant that I began to hear Him speak to me.
I began to hear... I mean literally He would speak to me. One night at work, we were in the middle of volume. If you're a server, in the middle of the volume means that the place is packed out. We're busy, we're slammed, we're working our butts off. And I had all these dishes, I'm bringing to the dish pit, and I had these thoughts coming and I was freaking out and I'm crying out to Jesus, Lord, this is not... I'm not pursuing this. It's coming out of nowhere. And I cried out to Jesus and I heard the Lord say to me, I did not create you with those thoughts. That broke through all that frantic stuff going on in my head. And I stopped. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's right. I said, in the name of Jesus, I do not receive these thoughts.
And just like that, it stopped. And that was my first clue that there is an unseen enemy which we hear of in scripture. We have to take authority that the weapons of our warfare are mightier to God and pulling down strongholds and the strongholds are in the mind. And that began to really empower me and strengthen me to be able to stand up in the identity of who I really was. And then God began to reveal layers of lies that I had believed. And when I sat down to actually take a look at my abuse, something had got dredged up toward my mom, and it was something that had been hidden and the Lord allowed it to be revealed. And it did not go away. It got worse until I actually had a sort of confrontation with my mom. And that brought a measure of healing.
And I knew then that what I needed to do was... How much more healing do I need? That led me back to Oklahoma City to begin to working on everything else. I had done an inventory of the abuse, and I had over 34 people that were involved in my molestation. And I stopped at 34 because I didn't need to go any further to know that what had happened to me was egregious, but that had left such a deep wound and mark in my soul that I needed help. And so coming back to Oklahoma City was not an easy thing for me to do because everywhere I went, I encountered some place, some memory, some physical location that reminded me of something awful in my life or even the way that I sin against my children or my ex-wife or whatever.
But gradually as I brought them to Jesus, Lord, this place of pain, I can't heal this, I need you to do this. And he faithfully showed up every single time and has really brought me to a place now where I'm walking out the scripture where it says, we comfort with the same comfort that He comforted us. And we've done research. The research is out there that most people who struggle with homosexuality or any kind of sexual brokenness, a large percentage, not 100%, but a large percentage of people have undergone some type of molestation or trauma, that is related to the thing that they're dealing with. And so we want to flush that out. At the ministry, we don't go advertising. We don't go looking for people. People that are needing help, they come to us. And I love what I do.
I love being able to facilitate and pass on what Jesus has done in me and is continuing to do in me. And when you think about it in retrospect, think about Jesus and the disciples. What did they do? But they carried on everything that he instilled in them and they all laid their lives down for Him. And so that's sort of what brings me to this place of being willing to have that hard conversation. The church in general doesn't really like to talk about it. It's a hard subject and there's so much animosity around it. Think of demons in chains that can be seen, are you really going to pass down that hallway when you see these ferocious monsters that are chained, but they look like they can devalue you?
I used to be afraid of the dark when I was a kid, but now... The LGBTQ, and there's a lot of broken people in that I don't have any animosity toward anybody in the LGBTQ community because I was one of them. And I understand and I know. A lot of them, they come from a place of great pain. And the church hasn't done a great job. Our ministry was started by a couple that their son came out to them and when they went to their pastor, his response to them was your son, there's nothing we can do for you. Your son's an abomination.
No, their son was not an abomination. The sin is an abomination, not the person. Jesus goes after the person. Look at the woman caught in adultery. Look at the woman at the well. Did you know that there's actual documentation at the woman at the well? Went on to lead a heritage of gospel preaching believers who laid their lives down for their gospel, including herself. Her name was Fotina. She's real. You know what I mean? I love how this stuff comes forth. Seeing how Jesus impacted. I relate most closely to the woman at the well and woman caught in adultery. And it's important to note, Jesus never actually called out their sin. When he engaged with the woman at the well, Fotina, his first words to her isn't, do you know you're going to hell? His first words to her were, give me something to drink. He related to her on the premise of her humanity. And by that, he was able to draw her into a conversation where then He was able to say, go call your husband.
He never called her an adulterer. And it's not because she wasn't an adulterer, but he approached her in such a way that sent her flying to the town going, come meet the man that told me everything I've ever done. I mean, you know what was interesting? So what I love so much about following Jesus is that, one of the things I love the most, is that I hear Him speak to me. And a few months after I yielded and surrendered, I'm living in Tulsa still, and my alarm clock went off. And at this time, now, obviously my alarm clock is set to a Christian radio station. And I get up out of bed and I'll groggily make my way to the alarm clock. And I'm just about to turn it off. And it's a song by Brian Duncan called Strolling on the Water. And the premise of the song is basically how Jesus walked on water. I always say this, Jesus didn't walk on water to show us how to walk on water. Jesus walked on water to demonstrate that what was impossible with us is possible with Him.
And you have to look at the context of the conversation with Peter. Peter said, if you command me to come to you, I come to you. Because Peter recognized that he couldn't do it unless Jesus willed it. So he did. And he only began to [inaudible 00:15:36], when he got his eyes off of Jesus and onto his circumstances and realizing where he was and his faith began to falter and what did he do? Jesus save me. And Jesus did. And there were two men that walked back on the water to the boat that day. We don't talk about that kind of stuff. So this song is talking about rising above our difficulties, walking on the water, high over every care.
And so I'm sitting there listening to this. It's got my attention and feeling a connection to the song. And then I hear the last lyrics of this song. You feel the wind in your hair with your eyes closed, take a breath of fresh air, feel the mist on your toes, look where we are. And I heard him say to me, look at what I'd done. I did it. I did it for you.
And realizing he brought me to that place, I fell on my knees and weeping, just so grateful that the freedom that I long for. And what I didn't mention is that from '96 to '99, I struggled so much with wanting to be free and I would try, I would make these attempts to get free. And my coworker, I have one coworker that she would say, Jim goes through this every six months. I would stop all the outward behavior, but I never addressed the adultery of the heart. And so in three years, striving not being able to get free. In yielding and surrendering to Jesus saying, if it kills me, I'm going to follow you because I can't live like this anymore.
And within 24 hours, I knew something had changed. The people talking to me about, does this mean you like girls now? I'm like, that's not what this is about. That's what I said. This is not what this is about. Now, I didn't tell you what it was about. All I knew is that I was following Him and He's leading me and He's speaking to me. And so I'm just going to keep going with Him. And it was after that, He began to restore to me the things that had been robbed of me. And even in my, not that I ever had a problem with attraction to women, it was just that the men were what I knew because of how I'd been abused.
But in that place of being able to go, oh yeah, I am heterosexual. I really am. I'm heterosexual. And realizing that what I struggle with was just sin. All of us. Hi, I'm human. And really being able to allow Jesus to take that on and then find out how He's made me. It's not about drudging up anything in my own or every morning, having little stickers on the window going... On the mirror, you are straight. You are straight. I didn't have to do any of that. I know who I am and I know how I've been created. And when you look at scripture, you take a really good look at scripture. You can't get away from it. It's all throughout the word of God in various themes. It keeps pointing back. And even Jesus said, when they're asking a divorce. Do you not know that from the beginning they were created, male and female?
These are things... When we encourage ourselves in the truth, when we yield ourselves to it, it reaps fruit, it brings life, and it brings healing and restoration. And that's what I'm walking in. I'm not saying that it's perfect, but I'm telling you, if you were to give me on a scale from one to 10, one fully gay identified, I'm at a nine and a half. I mean, on that scale. Places where I feel that I'm tempted are typically where I feel like right now, I'm not as skinny as I want to be. I'm 56 years old, there's no way I'm going to have thin tone, buff body, whatever. And a lot of that is outward anyway, the inwards is what's really going to matter in the long run. But it is like when I'm recognizing that I'm being tempted to compare myself with people, that's where a lot of peoples temptation comes from.
And when you learn to be able to be thankful and grateful for who you are and how God has made you, and you get your eyes off of what... And we all deal with that in some form or other, whether it's being jealous of people that are more successful than we are or make more money than we are or have a nicer car that we do. I mean, the list goes on and on. But in terms of where I've come from, unequivocally, I can say, Jesus set me free for homosexuality that no longer dominates my life. And I know from the many, many testimonies around me, He's in the business of setting people free, setting the captives free.
And even at our ministry, you have someone that they're just absolutely determined to be gay. We like, you go be gay. You do you. But let us tell you what we know about that. We're going to send you with the truth. We've done our part and the rest is up to you. But like I said, I can't change people. But if you have someone who is really, really sincere in wanting to know the truth, I mean, they're the ones that have to yield and surrender. I can't make anyone yield and surrender. No one could make me. The people that were in my life that were telling me that this is sin. Those people I had nothing to do with. I cut myself off from them. So it was really just me and Jesus. I didn't go through a program, I didn't go through any kind of counseling. I found Jesus because Jesus pursued me, and that's what he does with all of us.
