41. Discovering Christ My Life

© 2021 Daniel Yordy
August 2007 – June 2008

This diagram I found, depicting the three stages of a Saturn Rocket breaking free from earth’s pull, describes perfectly what is happening with me. The first and largest part of breaking free from Adam’s death was speaking what God says I am. I never confused this with any idea that I was “accomplishing something” by doing this. Rather, I knew that God was changing my thinking until I came to believe and to know what was already true. Nonetheless, this practice has made the entire Bible and all that God speaks in it an integral part of my own being.

The second rocket blast is the topic of this chapter, but in order to set the stage for the mind-blowing thing that happened to me in February 2008, I must first share the growing disconnect between myself and the version of Christianity believed and practiced at Family Christian. But before I do that, I will share my own experiences with the courses and students I taught across this 2007-2008 school year.

A New School Year 
At the end of the previous school year, the high school English teacher had gone elsewhere, and so I became the English teacher at Family Christian. At the same time the Rideau’s had seen all of our children vanish from the home school group and into the Christian school. Miss Kim was a good teacher, and so I encouraged her and gave my recommendation. Mr. Anderson hired Kim Rideau, then, as the middle school English teacher, and the four Rideau children followed our four into the same classrooms. This was great, since I then had Joy and Byron in my classrooms with Kyle and Johanna. Katrina could continue to share classes with Faith, and James continued being friends with Josiah. Miss Kim also took the drama class and did a much better job than I. Johanna had Miss Kim this year as her 8th grade English teacher. Meanwhile, James was in second grade with Miss Rita Borny and Katrina was in fifth grade with Miss Sneller.

This school year I taught 9th grade English, 10th grade English, and a combined 11th and 12th grade English with American literature. I also taught architectural drafting as the elective course, and I taught world geography to the 10th graders.

The pastor of Family Christian was Nathan Hyman. He had taken on the pastorship from a man who had started both church and school together. Although the church existed separately, its primary purpose and ministry was the school. Pastor Hyman and the elders of the church were the board over the school, nonetheless, the school felt as an equal to the church and not a sideshow.

Robert Anderson, who lived on the next street from our home, was the principal. John Bohacek served as the assistant principal, but also worked more as the ‘principal’ over the primary grades. I had Mr. Bohacek’s two older daughters in my classroom, Erica and Haylee. They were both intelligent and outgoing natural leaders.

Rita and Jean-Francois Borny were both teachers in the school. I had their two older daughters in my classroom, Samantha and Serena. Miss Rita taught second grade and Mr. Borny taught high school science. Miss Sue Cannon was a small and friendly black woman who taught high school math. Mr. Valentine, whose last name was unpronounceable and so everyone used his first name as his surname, was from Nigeria. He was hired prior to the start of the 2007-2008 school year to take Mr. Garcia’s place (since I had moved over to English), as the high school Bible and US history and government teacher. Then, the middle school teachers were also part of our upper-level regular meetings, including Kim Rideau and Miss Hernandez who taught middle school social studies and art.

Three different “races” working together was simply normal, at least in the Houston area, and no one thought anything about it. We had a good number of black students through all the grades, as well as Hispanics; I knew of no distinctions one way or the other from anyone. The Rideau children especially fitted right in and were loved by all in the school.

All teachers gathered each morning in the main sanctuary for devotions and prayer. Then, the upper grade teachers met together with Mr. Anderson once a week. The entire middle and high school gathered for chapel in the large youth room of the church each Thursday morning.

My Classes and Subjects
I will begin with the 10th grade class this fall semester whom I had for English and Geography. These 10th grade students were my ‘homeroom’ class, and so Maureen and I arranged to take them all to Dickens on the Strand with us the first week of December.

I had blanked over this part of my life, and, once again, as I look back, I discover just how much I loved these young people God had brought into my life. I won’t bring all of my students at Family Christian into the narrative, but this group was special, and I had them all at least three times over two years, English and Social Studies.

There were nine 10th graders. Samantha Borny, a studious and cheerful girl whose parents both taught in the school, Ashley Bouse, whose mother was the school secretary, Kaylee Faina who was smart and independent, one who didn’t fit in other people’s boxes, Larissa Hernandez, whose mother also taught in the school, Joseph Williams, who was a fun, happy-go-lucky boy and who was good friends with Kyle, Bishoy Agaybi, eager and pleasant, who was from Egypt and whose family had been Coptic Christian for centuries, Chad Steiger, a quiet and earnest young man, and Ryan Thomas, a tall African-American who loved sports. Finally, there was Joey Sneller, whose mother also taught in the school.

We prepared long before the trip, our third or fourth time to the Dickens festival. Maureen and I took all the students around to various used clothing stores and Maureen, Johanna, and Katrina had a lot of fun helping each one create a reasonable “Victorian” outfit. We spent most of the day in Galveston, enjoying all the sights and being part of the “Dickens” presentation. The students loved it; many of them had never had an experience like that before.

I had this 10th grade group study Hind’s Feet on High Places as a literature study later in the year. I had taught from it before more than once. I did not read out loud to them, but gave them some time to read it in class. One day, as I was reading the chapter quietly at my desk, along with them, the Spirit of God was flowing over me with such incredible understanding and tears, as the Lord always has every time I have read that book. I said to my students, “God is speaking wonderful things to me as I am reading this; let Him speak to you as well.”

In both 9th grade and 10th grade English, I read aloud All Quiet on the Western Front, a chapter each Thursday, and then we watched the movie after. This was a good choice because it showed that the millions of Christian young men who joined Germany’s armies in WWI did so fully confident that they were serving God, the cause of Christianity, and the country God had chosen, equal to or greater than the same thing in the American young men. Since history is always written by the winners, you don’t have an accurate view of WWI or of its fully intended anti-Christian outcome.

I had loved teaching geography at Blueberry, and I enjoyed teaching a similar course to this group of students. Two geography issues were current at this time, peak oil and global warming. I studied both and found that peak oil seemed to be a valid concern, but that man-made global warming was without scientific or logical basis. I spent time laying out both for the students. Of course, the earth is cooling dangerously now, but I was mostly wrong on peak oil which seems to have faded away as an issue. Both were interesting studies that combined science and geography.

The 9th grade class was the largest group in the upper grades and was considered the ‘rowdiest,’ often getting in trouble as a group. The obvious leader of that class, Kai Ordonio, a native Hawaiian, was NOT a troublemaker, rather the opposite, and often served to get them back “out of trouble.” The thing is, I love students of that age and their liveliness and rarely found for myself what the fuss was all about. I remember studying Shackleton’s incredible story of survival with my 9^th grade group, but I can’t remember if it was in English or if I taught them a social studies class.

In that 9th grade group, Kai was warm, intelligent, and generous to all, including me. Josiah Grier was smart, but sometimes religious. He soon figured out how to ask me exactly the right question in class that would send me down a ‘rabbit trail’ and relieve the class of any work for several minutes. He employed his craft successfully for most of two years, but I did not mind. I love rabbit trails (a side topic that catches my enthusiasm, but which has nothing to do with the current topic of study) and am convinced that students gain more from them than from rote learning. Haylee Bohacek was probably the source of much of the trouble this group got into. She was as smart as her older sister, Erica, but did not care for the fact that everyone expected her to live up to Erica’s ‘example.’ I really liked Haylee, however, and always enjoyed her leadership in this group, even though it was different from her sister’s. Brendan Farias was another young man in this 9th grade group. He was the only student at Family Christian with whom I ran into more than the usual difficulties, but that will not come in until next year. Then, two other girls with whom I had some connection were Paris Weber, who was impacted by my teaching of English more than I knew at the time, and Catie Buell, who was almost a ‘Gothic’ and fit the good temperament I had come to know them to be.

Mr. Anderson agreed that I could teach drafting and house design as my elective. This proved a popular choice for many from 9th grade to 11th. Our first project for the year was to build the sloped drafting boards each student in the course would need. I remember watching Bishoy Agaybi’s face just come alive in this hands-on and actually useful ‘classroom’ work and grieved much inside that there was so little of it in modern education. Two in particular from ninth grade who took this class were Gabby Voronov, a young girl for whom I cared deeply and sort of “looked out for,” and Emmett Brown, who was not gifted in academic study, but who was brilliant beyond the others in every assignment I gave on drafting and home design. I encouraged him much to look at a career in architecture, but I don’t know the outcome. 

My problem, however, is that I was beginning to gravitate at this time to my one joy of teaching writing and to the growing dislike of teaching most other subjects. And so through the year, mostly in the second semester, I slowly disconnected in the enthusiasm of my mind from teaching drafting. The more that I disconnected, then, the harder it was to get my drafting students to do their work, and the harder it was to get my students to do their work, the more I disconnected. By the end of the year, the drafting period was little more than a study hall. This was entirely my fault, but it will be a few years, yet, before I discover why.

My final class this year was English for the combined group of 11th and 12th grade students. This combining of the two grades, then, went back and forth between American and English literature from one year to the next. This year was American literature. And this was the first time I had my son, Kyle, who was in 11th grade, in my own classroom with other students. I will share more of what that meant to me in the account of the next school year.

The three seniors in this group included Jess Farias whose mother taught one of the primary grades. Jess was the “life of the party,” always the center of attention, though Erica Bohacek was the true and anointed leader of the high school. Kyle’s grade level included Joy Rideau, as well as Chey Wilshire, who had also been in our homeschool group before coming to Family Christian for high school. I’ll also mention Cassie Zurovec in this group, whose younger sister, Jenna Zurovec, was in the same grade level with Johanna. Jenna and Johanna have been best friends from sixth grade on.

There were a lot of smart and outgoing kids among them. I enjoyed working with them, but they were often a challenge as well, requiring me to flex to meet them at their level. The book studied in American Lit is The Scarlet Letter which I had not understood until I read it again in my late twenties. I had them read only portions and read a number of the chapters out loud, while explaining the real meaning of the story. Then, with this group, I brought my writing course a significant step further towards what it eventually became. This group was a good laboratory for me to prove out what worked and what did not. I also included a unit on writing sales copy out from what I had studied with AWAI. Some of their sales letters were pretty convincing.

A New Agony
This fall semester was the same time period through which I was engaged with the long process of finishing my first book. Through this fall semester at Family Christian, however, a new agony arose inside of me. I was filled with such words of joy, and I could not share them with anyone. I knew without question that there is no such thing as word flowing in without the same word flowing out to others.

I had fitted some of the confessions of faith into my Bible class lessons and they were well enough received. These brethren knew the meaning of spiritual things. But there was always the impassible barrier of a Jesus faraway and someday. The truth is, of course, that I myself did not know or understand the real meaning of those words that had seized my heart in such hope.

How do I share this word? I had three avenues at hand, all three of which came to almost nothing. The first was my book, The Jesus Secret, mostly complete, but not quite ready to hand out. And the second way was personally sharing this word with individual people who might receive it.

The third way was that I got myself a little digital voice recorder and in the early morning hours while my family was asleep, I recorded a total of twenty-one teachings, three groups of seven each. These were all unscripted and rough, right out from my heart and out from the agony of having nowhere to share this overwhelming word that now filled me to overflowing.

You see, my great burden was two-fold. The Jesus Secret in no way satiated my burning desire to know God by knowing His Word sent into me. In complete contrast, it increased that agony manifold. My purpose in these early morning and lonely recordings was to understand the joining of this new-found joy of speaking in confident faith what God says I am in my finished state, just like the Lord Jesus, and all the word God had planted in my heart over many years, Word that I knew was of Him.

I put these twenty-one recordings onto CDs and attempted to get people to listen to them, but they didn’t. I had my family listen to them, but that also hit a wall halfway through and we could not finish. I transcribed them all into written form, but my wording was very rough.

I did not know that God had not yet released His Word through me, not until my experience with Jesus in February of 2008 became my knowledge of the Bible. And that is the first time I have seen February of 2008 coming up, set against February of 1998, and I bow my head in wonder before a holy and a faithful God.

I worked a lot to improve the wording of those three sets of seven lessons each, and they eventually became the core chapters of each of the three parts of my book, Our Path Home. The first topic was the meaning of the first four most important verses of the Bible for our lives today. I titled that “The Goal of the Believer,” then changed it to “Journey’s End,” and ended up with "Home as It Really Is.” The second topic was “What Is Man?” That is, what does it mean that we are conceived out from God. And the third was about what it might mean that we are being “Transformed into His Image.” You can identify those twenty-one early recordings scattered through Our Path Home because they are stiffer or blockier than the other chapters.

My First Websites and The Jesus Secret
Through these fall months I created my first two websites, dyordy.com and thejesussecretsociety.com. I had to go with “society” because someone else already owned “jesussecret.com." I did little with the dyordy site at this point and worked mostly on the Jesus Secret website as a sales page for my book. I wrote a decent sales copy page following all the things I had learned from the copywriting course. Sadly, this website sold none of my books.

Before we arrive at the momentous and life-changing thing Jesus did to me in February of 2008, I want to share my sending out of the 100 copies of The Jesus Secret that I now had in hand. This giving away took place over several months, but the majority in January and February.

I sent copies to individuals I had known in the move, including Rick Annett and Joe McCord. These were the only two sendings that bore fruit. Rick shared with me the profound joy and victory that speaking The Jesus Secret brought into his life. I would not know of it for several years, but Brother Joe did begin to draw from my books now and then to share good things in the word that he preached. These two, however, were the only responses I received back.

I gave copies to different ones in the home school group and among my colleagues at Family Christian. I don’t think that those who did read some from it really understood what it was about. I visited with Sue Cannon often, sharing the Lord in fellowship with her. She always responded in receptive joy, but as I look back now, I realize that was probably more her way than any actual understanding of the things I shared.

I sent copies of my book specifically to John and Nathel Clarke and to Joel Osteen. With them, I included a personal letter, each of which I want to share here.

January 22, 2008. Dear Brother John and Sister Nathel, we hear the news of you from Ann.  May the Lord bless and strengthen you during this time.

I want to share my book with you as my gift to you.  This is more than a book, but rather the experience of thirty years, drawn with all my heart into what God is speaking to me today.  As I finished the last page, I saw that everything I have ever gone through was for this, and I heard the Father say to me, “Well done, good and faithful son.”  I never felt more blessed and filled with joy in my life.

Much of the good in those thirty years of experience came through you, and I bless you for it. My hope, Sister Nathel, is that you will read my book aloud to Brother John.  Read it with my blessing and thankfulness. 

My heart has never left the word God first birthed into me in the first two years I was in the move. In leaving the communities, I asked God to sift out what He had not spoken from what He had spoken. There is no way in this world that I want to lose one iota of what was God speaking; I want everything that was not God speaking gone. I think you will see, as you go through The Jesus Secret, that sifting.

This is my anointing; this is my gift; this is the purpose of all the glory and all the agony of my life – the Jesus Secret.  And now, as I see myself going forward, my task is to get this book into the hands of as many of God’s dear people as I can.

My prayer is that the vision that God Himself birthed in you will be re-strengthened as you go through this book. I know that you rest in His joy over you.

~~~~

March 11, 2008. Pastor Joel, my family and I have been attending Lakewood for over a year and a half.  I must admit, I avoided Lakewood for the first few years we were in Houston.  I thought a “mega” church must be all about production. When my wife insisted we visit, I loved it.  2006 had not been my worst year in life, but it was close enough. Within a couple of months of sitting under the word you teach, I was able to say truly that 2006 was the best year of my life so far. 2007 was much better and 2008 has started off with a knowledge of His presence like I have never known in my life.

The key for me was a statement you make over and over; I think it is also found in your book, Your Best Life Now.  “Speak what God says you are.” I am the kind of person that takes a word like that all through the Bible to see what God really says. And so I wrote down every statement in the New Testament that describes me on this basis: I will be just like Jesus when I see Him as He is. I put all that together in this book I am sharing with you.  Yes, much that is in this book is drawn from over 30 years of seeking God and walking with Him, but the spark that drew it all together was the word you spoke into my life. Thank you.

I also want to say that, yes, I have sat under “deeper teachings” for years. But my knowledge of “deeper” truth did not help me because God was far away. You have taught me to believe that He is for me, that His favor is upon me. You have taught me to draw near to God with full assurance of faith. All deeper teaching, as important as it might be in the long run, is useless without the foundation of trusting in God as you share like I have never known before. I soak in every word you teach, and I will value it for the rest of my life. Thank you.

I would like to share this book with you, The Jesus Secret. As I finished the book, God showed me that everything I have gone through in life was for the writing of this book. I do not know how far God will take it. I hope it will be a blessing to many.
~~~

Please understand that Joel receives hundreds of communications like this every day from all over the world. I am certain that he has staff members who go through them and give to him only what is most pertinent. Whether my letter or book made it to Joel, I do not know. But I always leave all those things in the hands of my very capable Savior.

Now, in spite of some repetition, I want to include a total of four of these letters.

The next I gave personally to Bill Johnson along with a copy of my book; which circumstances I want to share. Also you will notice that the letters to Joel Osteen and Bill Johnson came after the incredible thing Jesus would do with me in February, though I include them here.

Sometime in March, Bill Johnson was ministering at Victory Christian Center, and so we attended that service. I was determined to give Bill Johnson a copy of my book with this letter I had written. Bill Johnson shared in the service, both word and prayers of healing. When the service was over, Pastor Tony hustled Bill Johnson through a side door right in front of me, in order to escape the press of people who would want to attach themselves to this “man of God.”

Now, this was quite different from the move, which did have many godly qualities. In the move everyone had personal access to the ministry and saw them daily as part of the family if you lived in the same community. Brother Sam, Brother Buddy, and Brother Joe knew most everyone personally, thousands of people world-wide.

As I saw Bill Johnson disappearing behind that door, with my heart pounding, I did one of the bravest things in my life. I got up off my seat on the front row, in front of hundreds of people, and followed them through that door.

I joined them in Pastor Tony’s office and gave my book to Bill Johnson, asking him to look through it if he would, pointing out the letter to him I had included. He received me with great kindness, but also a tinge of sorrow. “I have stacks of books like this in my office, given to me with the same request,” he said. “I can’t promise that I will be able to look at yours.”

I left all that in the Lord’s hands. Here is the letter I had written.

March 12, 2008. Dear Pastor Bill Johnson, you do not know me, but I have been in a couple of your meetings here in Houston.  You are also acquainted with a number of people I have known for years, John and Nathel Clarke, Tom Rowe, and others. You may also know Katie Bracken in your congregation as well as my niece, April Lewis, who recently enrolled in your Bible School.

Reading your books, a couple of years ago, helped set me on a journey that culminated with the writing of this book, The Jesus Secret. I believe it dovetails very well with the word God is speaking through you. I hope it will be a blessing to you.

God is moving in the earth to fulfill the New Covenant, in its entirety. We are becoming like Jesus as we see Him as He is. Great power is issuing forth from the Father, not just to cause us to be a witness of Christ in power, as important as that is, and not just to fulfill every word of the New Covenant, as exciting as that is, but to bring to completion now in our lives the original determination and intent of God, our complete union with Christ.

It’s happening and it must happen in this age, on this earth, in our lives.

It is my prayer that God will use my book to bring many into the determination of God.  Please take a few minutes to leaf through it. If God quickens anything to you, it might be of some value to you to spend more time with it. I pray that you are blessed by The Jesus Secret.

Thank you for the word that you teach. My wife and I receive your podcasts and gain much life and encouragement from them.

~~~

Though I eventually gave away all copies of The Jesus Secret, I received no return response from anyone except Rick Annett. It was a wall of silence.

A Growing Disconnect
My relationship with my students in the classroom and the content I was teaching them was one thing, existing separately from my growing disillusionment with the worldliest church I have ever known personally and with an approach to “Christian” education that kept all the destructive practices and philosophies of modern education while retaining little of the excellent instructional methods that are common in Texas public schools.

Now, the Lord has just shown me something incredibly wonderful. I had thought up until now that all my work through these years, literally thousands of hours, on a different approach to teaching children, that all of it has come to nothing. And so I have borne it with great sorrow until now. Yet now the Lord shows me the obvious, that such is not possible, that all I have labored over with tears will return to me fully formed in its season, for I can lose nothing. At the same time, this entire milieu of my concern with a different way to educate young people, from 1999 until 2015, is essential to the environment in which the Word of Christ is being formed inside of me. And so I will include some of these things as of equal importance with everything else taking place in my life.

I find a great jealousy arising inside of me, that I would impart to you, as completely as I can, the preparing of this wondrous path into all the knowledge of God. With all my heart, I would have you know from whence this path comes. Nonetheless, this is not a diatribe concerning “not loving the world,” nor a treatise on education, and so I must carefully weave these things as they fit with my ongoing life experiences of affliction, goodness, and glory.

This environment into which God had placed me was perfect and critical to all that God was working inside of me. I do NOT want anyone to think that this was not a wonderful group of Christian people who loved Jesus, who walked in the Spirit, and who knew the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon them on a regular basis. These brethren represented God’s great dilemma and travail over His people all across the earth, and they treated me with all kindness and respect, including and especially Mr. Anderson. They are good people filled with Jesus.

Nonetheless I was once again plunged into an environment with which I did not agree, and God moved with me inside of these many contradictions with much grace and with much inner sorrow. Some of these contradictions fit more into the next chapter. Here I must start with Mr. Valentine and chapel.

Mr. Valentine’s philosophy of education seemed to be that teaching is all about the teacher and all the “important” things the teacher was presenting to the class.  The students were left then with the task of discovering what they were expected to learn. The work they were given did not relate sensibly with what was taught, but again, the students were responsible for producing what the teacher expected even though they had no idea what it was. And when they did not, they failed and the problem was their fault, they simply were not applying themselves as they ought.

This caused great difficulty for the students. They had no idea what Mr. Valentine expected. Erica Bohacek, who “applied herself as she ought” beyond almost any other student I have taught, was barely making a D. Kyle, who is today an effective college instructor, was receiving F’s, and others were struggling much more than he. And yet they were exhorted that this was their fault. Such an approach to teaching, of course, always reduces student learning even among those who love to learn.

The problem came when I tried to raise the issue with Mr. Anderson and with the gathering of my colleagues. When I suggested to Mr. Anderson that he and I sit down with Mr. Valentine and gently share a more effective way of teaching, Mr. Anderson would not consider it. In the meeting with my fellow teachers, which included Mr. Valentine, I shared that if my students were not learning what I thought I was teaching, I would take that upon myself and alter how I taught until they were learning successfully. Sue Cannon immediately contradicted me and told Mr. Valentine never to think that way, that if his students did poorly on his test, that was entirely their fault. And so I could only keep my mouth closed.

This “teacher-centered” approach to classroom instruction is all too common in Christian schools. In fact, I got in trouble over this issue at both Bowens Mill and Blueberry. So what if your brilliant display of classroom teaching was ‘of God,’ if your students did not learn a thing, what have you actually done? Jesus said that what goes in doesn’t count, but only what comes out. What is the actual fruit of your teaching inside your students bound against their wills to the desks in front of you? Some teachers don’t consider such questions.

Another method of classroom instruction used by some at Family Christian and in other Christian schools is text-book centered teaching. The ABeka curriculum is like that, driving the classroom moments with rigid control. Others simply say, “Read the chapter and answer the questions.” Thankfully, this method was discouraged at the Blueberry school and in most of Texas public education. It is an approach I never “rebelled against” but never implemented, ever.

Kyle graduated from four years of sitting under these approaches and philosophy of education with great sorrow, counting the educational side of his teenage years to be almost a complete loss. At the same time this great contradiction created for me one of the greatest presses I have passed through in my life - but that is for the next chapter.

Let us now go to chapel. Chapel very quickly became more than I could bear.
Don’t get me wrong, there were mighty movings of the Spirit upon the students in these chapel services all through our time there. The Lord touched many and there were times of great dedication to the Lord. But Nicene Christianity is all about mixing Christ with that which contradicts Christ, to equal measure.

I sat there listening to grown adults telling these children, all the way down to 12 years old, that if their neighbors went to hell, IT WAS THEIR FAULT. There was a continual tension between the Spirit of God drawing the students to worship the Lord in a wonderful anointing and the exhortation that if they were not coming to the front - especially you on the back row - then you are in rebellion against God.

Then there was Mr. Valentine who, as the high school Bible teacher, also oversaw the chapel times. Mr. Anderson was there, but he played the drums in the praise and let Mr. Valentine officiate. Both Mr. Anderson and Mr. Borny were men of the Spirit and very often the genuine flow of the Holy Ghost would proceed out from them as well as out from Erica Bohacek, but they did nothing toward that which so contradicted the Lord Jesus.

To Mr. Valentine, the law was fully equal with the gospel. That is theory only, however, for wherever there is any percentage of law, the gospel goes quiet and cannot speak. Again, there was much gospel known apart from Mr. Valentine, but it did not come through him.

‘I’ Disappear
On Thursday, February 21 (it may have been the 14th), I attended another typical chapel meeting. Again, Mr. Valentine shared the message, and again he pounded law into these children contrary to the gospel of Jesus inside them. And again, as I stood at the back of the chapel room with the other teachers, in great agony of soul, I also did what I always do.

Let me explain. Although I knew nothing of Asperger’s, I have always possessed the agony of too much feeling assailing me and I have always possessed the answer to too much pain and noise, the ability to disassociate, that is, to separate myself into another “mind” that does not hear the awful things. This ability is only partial because I remain fully aware of the outer reality, but I am protected from it. Since I had begun to speak what God says I am, this other “mind” was no longer a fantasy world, but rather the Person of the Lord Jesus.

And so as I stood there hiding inside of Jesus from Mr. Valentine vociferously pounding anti-Christ into these children, the most extraordinary thing happened to me.

“I” disappeared, and Jesus was the only One remaining.

I knew, in that moment, my full union with the Lord Jesus Christ, even as we had looked towards such a thing at Blueberry, exactly what I had known in the prophetic dream I shared while there in 1995. Yet I also knew, instinctively in that moment, that it was never “I” who had come into union with Christ as I once falsely imagined to be our obligation. In complete contrast, it was Jesus Himself who has actively and presently come into union with all that is me.

I rushed from there to my computer once again, and this time, typed “union with Christ” into a Google search. That very afternoon, I found www.christasus.com and began to read with all earnest excitement. This website included the writings of a number of those who had followed Norman Grubb and who taught our full and present union with Christ. A man by the name of Fred Pruitt was a primary teacher in this group, and right off the bat I connected with his spirit and his wonderful explanations of the gospel.

This is meant to be an account of my life and experiences and not any foray into Christ-our-life teaching. But I want to set here my experience. I have surrendered my heart and life to God at ever deeper levels and in three different ways all the days of my life. And that surrender has been proven out inside of difficulties greater than is common to most Christian experience. There were the gentle surrenders when I sought the Lord, and He came to me and showed me His kindness towards me, beginning with asking Jesus into my heart at age seven. There were the desperate surrenders with the bony finger of God pointed straight into my forehead attended either with a mighty and holy fear resting upon me or that implacable, “No, no, no,” that did not cease until I had broken before such an uncompromising God. And then there were the Covenant surrenders when I bound God to myself, that He might never let me go.

No surrender I have ever experienced comes anywhere close to the greatest surrender of the Christian life, the surrender to a Jesus who comes into union with me.

To surrender to Jesus all of my sin, all of my shame, all of my sinfulness, all of my stupidity, all of my endless and humiliating mistakes, that all of these now belong only to Him, and never to me again. That from this moment on, Jesus is utterly responsible for me, for all that I find myself to be including all that I do and say - This is the greatest surrender of the Christian life.

Nonetheless, I had now become dangerous to the evil one, and the last thing that accusing voices wants is to be shut out forever. From this moment on for the next nine months, I came under spiritual assault greater than I ever knew before or since. I will unfold that experience as I go forward through these months.

Fred Pruitt and Union with Christ
One thing I must again emphasize is that Family Christian was where I worked, around forty hours a week, but it was not my home or my fellowship. Community, of course, had been all three, and thus, much more intense, though its rewards were also much greater.

Here is most of a letter I wrote to Fred Pruitt before the end of February.

Fred Pruitt, my name is Daniel Yordy. I have been reading your web messages the last few days and have emailed Linda Bunting. She suggested that you might be willing to swing by Houston to meet with us during your trip to Texas in April. I’d like to briefly share with you my history as an introduction.

After reading Rees Howells: Intercessor and being deeply moved by the book, at the age of 20, in 1977, I headed north into the Canadian wilderness, seeking a deeper experience in God. There I found a move of the Spirit led by Sam Fife, a ministry who taught a sonship message of overcoming death and going on to the fullness of Christ. For the next twenty years, I was part of that fellowship, living for most of that time in Christian community. Sam Fife was killed in a plane crash in 1979 and the ministries who led that move of the Spirit eventually led it in a direction I could no longer agree with. My wife and I left that move of the Spirit in 1998 and eventually ended up in Houston, Texas where I am presently teaching in a Christian school.

However, in leaving that move of the Spirit, I did not want to lose anything God had taught me through those years, but I did not know the dividing line between what God had taught me and what had been tacked on by man. So I placed myself before the Lord, first to bring healing to my life and second to reveal His truth to me. God is doing just that.

In the summer of 2006, we started attending Lakewood Church with Joel Osteen. In spite of the megachurch status, I was surprised to find just the word God knew I needed.  Joel Osteen said something that sparked a fire in me. He said, “Speak who God says you are.” I’m never satisfied until I know the totality of what something like that means in the Word, so over the next few months I wrote out every description of who I am in the New Testament, gradually turning it into the material for a book. Last fall, that book became The Jesus Secret: Who I Am. It is a guide to speaking who God says we are, which I have practiced since I started writing it.

The word that has changed me the most is this: “Christ is all there is in me; I am complete in Him.” Every time ill-feeling and despair would sit upon me, I would speak that over and over. It takes no time at all for the ill-feeling to vanish and to find myself in full faith in Jesus. Anyway, last week, the Lord began to speak to me on a deeper, more intimate level than I have known. He showed me that I was to lean upon Him and trust Him utterly.  Last Thursday morning, I was in a difficult setting [the chapel service above]. I closed my eyes and envisioned Him, casting myself fully upon Him. But instead of leaning upon His breast, I found myself disappearing into Him and He into me. I knew, more clearly than I had ever known, that I was one with Him.

Meanwhile, over the last few years, I have been looking on the Internet for people who were hearing the same things God has been teaching me. I had found Gary Sigler’s Kingdom Resources and have my own website posted there. But Thursday evening, I came across Christasus.com and began reading. I have been so blessed and overwhelmed with joy as I find the same word in you that has become so precious to me. When I read your words, I open my book and read mine and find them saying exactly the same thing, over and over.

So, yes, I would like very much if you were able to visit us here in Houston next month.  I may have a small group that would like to listen to what you have to share, but whether or no, my family and I would welcome the connection.

~~~

Fred Pruitt did come to Houston that April with three other brothers traveling with him sharing with small groups on our precious union with Christ. They were sharing at a sister’s home on the north side of Houston on a Saturday afternoon, and so Maureen and the children climbed into our van with me and we attended that sharing time. All of the brothers with Fred shared a bit to the several people gathered as well as the six of us. Fred shared last and longest. It was a new and fresh word to me, and we enjoyed the fellowship and a light meal together after.

I invited them to come and share in our home the next morning, a Sunday, and, since they had nothing else in their schedule, they agreed. We also invited them to share Sunday dinner with us, so before they arrived, I rushed to pick up a couple of rotisserie chickens and tubs of potato salad from Kroger’s.

The four of them sat in our living room with the six of us. At this point, James was nine, so that was conceivable. Fred Pruitt shared last and the longest, a wonderful explanation of union with Christ and Christ living as us. I noticed a stark difference, however. I had expected a great and sober anointing to be resting upon such men carrying such a word, but only Fred’s words came into me through the Spirit, the others were just nice men sharing nice things. We had good fellowship and dinner together, however, and as they left, I gave each one a copy of The Jesus Secret.

I then ordered several of Norman Grubb’s books and started to read his primary book, Yes, I Am. After reading a couple of chapters, however, I hit a wall dead on. There was no Spirit anointing upon or any present knowledge of “My words are Spirit, and they are Life,” within Norman Grubb’s writing. His words were primarily mental ideas. I cannot know God in that way, so I stopped reading and gave away most of those books. I do not draw anything that I teach directly from Norman Grubb, nor from most of those who follow him, for there is little Spirit-knowing in their understanding.

Two of those who knew Norman Grubb, however, had received full immersion into the Holy Spirit before they had met him, Dan Stone and Fred Pruitt, and thus through what these two wrote, I received much word as Spirit and as life. 

The important thing here is that through the next few years I spent much time reading Fred Pruitt’s articles and gained much immediate confirmation and understanding of the truths of our precious union with Christ that I continue to share today all through everything I write.

Continuing at Lakewood
When God spoke to me to “Give My people hope,” He had no intention of leaving me on my own to figure out what that might mean. On the contrary, when the time came, God put me under a man who taught me to hope in the expectation of God most every Sunday for seven years. I think this way, that 350 times, and, one might say, in 350 ways, Joel Osteen taught me to HOPE in God.

Do you understand why I regard this man as one of my dearest friends in life? And like reading John Eldredge, to hear and watch Joel Osteen is to know him personally, for all that he shares comes out from the goodness and expectation of God in his own personal life.

Next, I want to share a bit more about the ministry at Lakewood and the order of the service. I will describe more in upcoming chapters because I want each of these chapters to be known as inside our time at Lakewood. The Lakewood church ministry was primarily the Osteen family. Joel and Victoria were the lead pastors, joined by Joel’s brother, Paul, a medical doctor by profession, and Joel’s sister, Lisa Comes. Paul and Lisa often shared the word in the Wednesday night services, some of which we attended. Their mother, Dodie Osteen was viewed by all as the ‘mother’ of the church. Dodie Osteen’s incredible and determined faith in God impacted everyone, but especially her children.

Then, Marcos Witt served as the assistant pastor as well as the pastor of the full Spanish service held every Sunday afternoon, soon after our service was over. Marcos Witt had grown up in a missionary setting in Mexico. He was a gifted singer, widely known across Latin America as a prominent gospel singer. When Joel was not present of a Sunday, Marcos Witt was typically the one who shared the word. Pastor Marcos always had us laughing in the joy and goodness of God.

The praise times at Lakewood were led by several together. The initial praise leader was Cindi Cruse-Ratcliff. Then a black brother and sister had joined the Lakewood staff soon after we started, Da’dra Greathouse and Steve Crofford. These two were wonderful praise leaders; in fact, they all moved together back and forth in the flow of worship. Much of the time, another black brother also joined in leading the praise, Israel Houghton, an Emmy-award-winning gospel singer. You might know some of his songs, including “I Am a Friend of God.” More than once, Israel and Steve or Steve and Da’dra would sing back and forth to each other in the leading of the praise as is common in southern African American worship. I loved those times.

The praise songs chosen at Lakewood were songs anyone could freely join with, unlike the strange non-sing-able beat all too common elsewhere. There was a large supporting orchestra behind the main platform, but their sounds did not dominate as is the case in many modern churches. It was always a rich Spirit-anointed river of life flow of worship, always lifting me up into the Spirit where God often spoke incredible understanding to me.

I will share more of a typical service in the next chapter.

Withstanding All Assault
When Sister Jane Miller first taught me that many dark things pressing against me, things I once thought were “just me,” that those things are demons, unclean spirits whispering untrue words, I was forced into a life of spiritual warfare. I did not want to fight, but I wanted to be under false feelings and lying accusations even less. And so, when a false spirit made me feel cut-off from God, I attempted to oppose it. In the end, only a gentle surrender into God arising from within my own spirit, broke the hold of darkness against my mind.

But I did not like to fight; fighting is not what I want to be doing, or so I thought. Yet living under demons pissing all over me was worse. And so I fought, and over years I learned to fight, and I learned what things were truly of my human person and what things were false and not of me at all. I fought against demonic assault against me, the lying inside, the dark feelings, the “I-am-in-trouble-with-God” sensations without letup, really, from 1987 to 2013, twenty-six years.  

I DO NOT allow demons to piss against me.

Yet I had not known spiritual warfare like that which came against me from the moment I knew my full and present union with Christ. For nine long months, from February to November of 2008, I endured every screaming voice wailing its accusations against me. The words came in the voices of those I had known, preachers of Nicene theology, elders and apostles in the move. It was not those persons, but the words were those they had spoken, now in the form of unclean ruin relentlessly assailing my mind and heart every day.

“You have no right. – You are moving out of your place. – You blaspheme God. – Who do you think you are? – You are the proudest man I have ever known. – You are unsubmissive.”

And through all these months, I spoke the words of the Jesus Secret – Christ is my life; I have no other life. Christ is all there is in me. I spoke those words, not as a chant, not in order to “make something happen,” but because they are TRUE and because they are the ONLY place I WILL live. – You see, I have a desperate, desperate need to live; death is not an option for me.