50. Having Something to Say

August 2018 - December 2019



With our children now full adults, there was very little going on in our lives through this time, other than Maureen caring for Carol, and me writing each early morning. Nonetheless, my page limit still seems to fill up quickly.

After my visit with Peter Douglas in New York City, he also began sending me a regular monthly donation that has continued until now. At this point I was receiving around $1000 a month in total. This tremendous provision has made the difference in our financial situation. It has taken some weight off of Maureen and has allowed me to give myself freely to a new urgency of word. This money has always come as freely given, yet more than once, I have said to myself, “Yordy, you’d better get to work in return for all this.” It has always been a positive incentive in the Lord.

Yet much more than that, I receive every gift as the impartation of a dear brother or sister into my life, a greater value than I can count. I am a wealthy man.

I must also bring back two individuals in the last chapter, Dr. Katherine Loveland and her graduate assistant. It is easy to brush by individuals such as these and not recognize contempt in one’s attitude. This is why we give an account in the presence of God, so that we might place the Lord Jesus on everything.

“Father, I accept that Jesus has cleansed me from all contempt. and I forgive Dr. Loveland and her assistant. I place them into Jesus and bless them, that they might know You.”

Sometime through these years I switched over to a Ketogenic diet, most of the time. Eliminating most starches in my diet and including lots of good fats has been the most helpful to me of all natural health attempts through the years. A Ketogenic diet is expensive and takes more work, and so I have not always stuck to it, but I soon feel worse when I don’t.

The point is this, the more I hold to a Ketogenic diet the better my mind works and the more I can write. Part of this next time in my life is a massive increase in my writing output, often working on three and even four things at the same time. Yet this increase in writing ability has also been matched with an increase in the anointing and in the urgency in which I write.

For, you see, having completed the season of symmorphy and having passed through the nine months of travail in the crucible of the word, for the first time in my life and writing career, I have something to say.

Knowing Jesus As He Is
And having something to say, the first thing I would write is – Knowing Jesus As He Is.
I wrote the twelve chapters of this smaller book from mid-August to mid-November, 2018 with very little interruption. In the final chapters of Symmorphy V: Life, I had laid out a series of “rules” from each of the ruling verses of the Bible. I reworked those rules into an orderly list and added a few essential things to round it out. Thus I came up with a list of “36 Rules for Christian Thinking.” This list was now the content and organization for Knowing Jesus as He Is.

I wrote this little book intending to keep all negative out of it and to set forth only the truth of knowing Jesus in honesty and faith. I also set myself not to add anything “new,” that is, no “writing to learn.” Instead, I drew from across the span of the five Symmorphy texts, those things that had become cemented into my certain knowing of – what the Bible says.

It is a big deal to me to say, “This is what God says; this is the gospel.” You see, I’ve never heard anyone say that who was speaking the truth, who regarded what God actually says. And speaking dishonestly about the Bible and our Salvation is not something I dare to do. Such a place is a terrifying and solitary void.

Through this time I was also upgrading my websites to the full layout you now see at www.christrevealed.info. The man who owns the Composr content management system worked on my site personally, for very little cost, to make the full transfer from my old websites to the new. Nonetheless, I put in a lot of work as well, fixing all the bugs in the over two thousand pages in the new format.

Then, my computer of several years, which I had purchased with gifts from readers, finally cratered. I lost the hard drive, and then my backup hard drive got slightly damp and went out as well. I was left with all my work of many years – GONE! I spent a day holding my despair entirely into the Lord. I made an appointment with a technician who had helped me in the past, and it did not take him long to recover all the files from my hard drive. I was so grateful.

What I did, then, was build my own computer (again), using a motherboard my son gave me and buying a number of new parts. Although there was some interruption in sending out letters through this time, I was soon back on track. By the end of October, my website was fairly well finished.

I sent out the final chapter of Knowing Jesus as He Is, on November 14.

The “Winter” into Spring Writing Season
Along with my list of “The Rules of Christian Thinking,” I had also compiled a list of “The Rules of Serpent Thinking” through my completion of the Symmorphy texts. Thus I had fully in mind a second book to follow right after Knowing Jesus As He Is, which for awhile I titled “Let My People Go.” Then I realized that the title was addressing the evil one rather than the firstfruits of Christ, and so I changed it to Set My People Free. I wanted this text to be as precise and methodical as Knowing Jesus.

When I attempted to write the first chapters of Set My People Free, however, I hit a wall. I was not able to write “what I know.” I did not understand the serpent’s gospel as clearly as I required.

I already had written letters that were not for these two books, and so I turned to what became a new series/book which I eventually titled Designed by Word. My primary purpose for this text became to “write to learn” all the things I needed to know clearly before I could write Set My People Free as teaching only.

I wrote Designed by Word very quickly, sending out only a few of the chapters in my weekly email, but posting the remainder on the website. I also saw that the several letters I had written just prior to starting Symmorphy I: Purpose fitted very well into this book, and so I included them with a bit of re-write.

By the end of December, I sent out the chapter “One Verse to Rule Them All.” This was the first time I looked closely at the specific words of the serpent in Genesis 3:1-5 and what they actually meant in relation to the gospel of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Seeing the “gospel of the serpent” so clearly cemented in me a confidence I had not known before this moment. I now had what I needed to counter all the deceit of Nicene and Calvinist theology, and to counter those things out from what God actually says in the gospel.

Knowing Jesus As He Is was available in print copy on Amazon by the first of December. Bill Horton continued to call me on average twice a week for fellowship. He would have called me more often but I found that too many calls became overwhelming to me and so we settled on twice a week. Bill wanted to be involved in making Knowing Jesus available to many, and so he sent me the money to have many copies made for us to give away.

On December 2, I sent out a note with my letter asking if any reader would like to receive copies of Knowing Jesus in order to pass it around to people who might enjoy reading it. A number of readers responded, and so I sent several copies to each.

Bill also received a larger number of copies which he sent out to others. He sent one to Preston Eby and later received a favorable response from him.

As we worked through this process, however, I was pressed with the need for an introductory letter that would invite someone who loves Jesus to read my little book. And so I wrote the letter that now appears at the front of both Knowing Jesus and Set My People Free. It is also found as the only thing on my former website www.ourpathhome.com, which I made simply a landing page to send people to my now single and complete website www.christrevealed.info.

Writing this two-page letter was the most humbling thing I have ever written, for it required me to place myself beneath of any new reader in honor towards the love of God already shed abroad in their hearts towards me. This is the proper position of anyone whom God would send, on their knees in honor and regard towards the least little one who believes in Jesus.

This short letter was ready by the end of December, and thus it went out with the packages of books to be inserted into each. I soon resolved that problem by placing it into the pages of the book itself.

I sent out a number of copies to pastors, both in our area and some I found elsewhere in the United States. I just grabbed a few names at random. I also sent a copy to Johnny Brady, whose church we had attended when we first came to Houston. I never received back any replies and this whole daring enterprise became way too much for me very quickly. Promoting myself is not something I am comfortable doing.

Bill also sent copies to some people he had known in ultimate reconciliation circles including Phyliss Smith. Phyliss was from the Nashville area, but was living in Michigan at this time. Phyliss was deeply moved by the two-page letter that we had included with Knowing Jesus and soon began to communicate directly with me. She did not grasp the full meaning of the gospel as I share it right away, but she was drawn by the life and the honesty she found in what I write. I soon sent more of my books to Phyllis.

Another brother who received a copy of Knowing Jesus from Bill was Jerry Onyszczak, who lived just to the west of Nashville. Jerry also became excited about what he read and soon began to communicate with me. Eventually I sent him a package of a number of my books including all five Symmorphy texts.. Jerry had written a small book titled Total Victory of the Cross of Christ. He sent me a copy and I found it very useful to me to insert in a yet-to-be-written course inside my Christ Revealed Bible Institute program.

I completed Designed by Word by the end of December and then prepared it for print form. I was now ready to begin Set My People Free. In fact, for the first time, this first week of January 2019, I had the right outline for that text.

I sent Chapter 1 “Prepare a Highway” of Set My People Free out on January 13. I included the following note in the introduction to that letter.

~ I am laughing with overflowing joy this morning, for Father and I have walked together through a rough patch for the sake of His people and coming out the other side, I found myself well able to finish the first chapter of Set My People Free. I had imagined that I was stuck; I am so glad that I was wrong.

~ Two new books are now available on Amazon. Symmorphy V: Life is simply the most extraordinary book I have ever read. I urge you to obtain a print copy for yourself so that you might have it when the power goes out. Then, Designed by Word is a great introduction to this more focused course. Through writing it, I finally understand the power of the evil one in the church of Christ.

~~~
Nonetheless, writing the careful chapters of Set My People Free was slow going. I needed another outlet for all the other things arising inside of me. On January 16, I sent out the letter titled “We Do Not Know,” which then became the first chapter of a new book, The River of Life. My premise was that we do not know what a world of LIFE actually is, for we have never experienced such a thing.

From mid-January, then, until the end of May, I wrote back and forth between Set My People Free and The River of Life. Many chapters of The River of Life I posted only on the website and did not include in the weekly email. Whenever I stalled out in Set My People Free, I turned to The River of Life, inserting chapters that were the “writing to learn” I needed before I could carefully develop the “writing to teach” required by Set My People Free.

On February 17, I included a request in the introduction to my Christ Our Life letter for the readers to pray with me. Here is that prayer.

“Father, we ask together that you would release those brothers and sisters who have the gifts that are needed, those whose hearts are to join their gift with ours, so that this word of Christ our life, through Christ Revealed Bible Institute wherever and however it is to be, might be available to Your people across this earth. Father, we ask for this release in Jesus’ name, that heaven and earth be loosed, and that Your provision would be poured out for the purpose of gathering many together to learn the Symmorphy Bible Studies program together.

“For that reason, Father, we together believe that we have received all that we ask. We know that these specific brothers and sisters are right now on their way, to join their gifts with mine, that we together might prepare a place for Your people."

~~~
I did not know it, but this was not what God is doing with me in the present season, though it certainly could be God for me in an upcoming time. I place this prayer here, however, as part of my positioning for a great change in focus that will come in 2021.

The middle chapters of Set My People Free were hard for me to write, including “One Ring to Rule Them All,” and, most of all, “And in the Darkness Bind Them.” This was the most terrible piece I have ever written, but at this point, the successful deceit of the evil one in the Church was now fully exposed.

In between these two difficult chapters, I wrote the chapter “I Saw a Scroll” in The River of Life. This would be the first of two “game-changers” for me in writing that text. In fact, this chapter, “I Saw a Scroll” was the beginning of the new direction into which God was turning me.

In essence, I now understood that the seals being removed by Jesus were NOT God’s judgment against humans, but rather the “Christian” judgment against God and the gospel, and that the removal of the seals is, in effect, a deliverance service for all of God’s people caught in the awfulness of Nicene theology. God was now moving towards the present ministry of intercession.

The first of April, after I had completed “And in the Darkness Bind Them,” I wrote “How Will They Hear.” In that letter, I began a practice in my writing that has grown until now, the inserting of a prayer into the text that we would pray together. Although my readers and I are scattered all across the earth, nonetheless, we are one together in the Spirit and our prayers are effective. Here is that first prayer.

“Father, we thank You that our minds are the servants of Christ, now our only life. We thank you that our minds are the mind of Christ and that as our minds serve the Lord Jesus, so we see and honor our shared life with Him. Father, we ask that You would anoint our minds specifically so that we would be able to see and pierce the darkness that remains in the minds of our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ on the one hand, yet on the other hand be fully free to direct our eyes and our mouth to see and to speak no-consciousness of sins, but Christ alone concerning our brethren. We ask for this mighty grace, Father, by the authority You have given to us, the name of Jesus, and we believe with You that our precious Holy Spirit is fulfilling right now our shared desire in all power and might.”

Then, in the next letter, the prayer began in this way.

“Father, You have placed all authority into our hands, yet You have reserved all power entirely to Yourself and to Your Spirit. For that reason, Father, we are confident that You synergeo with us and we with You in all things. You rely, Father, on our authority to prophesy Christ in full confidence, to call His knowledge forth in all who belong to you, and we rely on the power of Your Holy Spirit to accomplish all that You and we desire.”

And it ends with these words.

“Father, we possess together all authority to love one another and to lay down our lives for Your Church. We stand absolutely together inside of that love, and we call forth the weak, the despised, the outcasts, the little ones of this earth, to know and to be the revelation of Your dear Son. And we declare this together in the name of our life and our hearts, the Lord Jesus, knowing that our precious Holy Spirit is accomplishing in power right now all that we speak.”

This practice of including a prayer was only intermittent at first, but it definitely is the first step into our present ministry together.

I finished the final chapter of Set My People Free the last week of May and sent it out on June 1. I was fully satisfied that I had accomplished my purpose in this “having something to say” little book.

At the same time as I was completing Set My People Free, however, I wrote one of the most important chapters in my journey to know the Lord, “Setting Forth Our Souls” in The River of Life. Ever since I received a vision of God as the One who carries us in October of 2011, the little verse, 1 John 3:16, had entered into my writing and I could not keep it out, though I did not understand it, nor even like it. Over time, I had realized that an accurate translation would be “set forth our souls” rather than “lay down our lives.” But I had no idea what that might mean.

Then, God took me again into Psalm 22, joining with David inside Jesus’ soul upon the cross. Inside of the present clarity I possessed concerning the gospel, I understood, for the first time, how it was that Jesus joined us together with the Father inside the agony of His own human soul inside the darkness of the last hour on the cross. And I understood how we are to do the same for our fellow believers. – And we also.

The Summer of 2019
I had the print copy of Set My People Free ready by the end of June.

Meanwhile, we had hit a snag regarding the insuring of our house on Fernbank Drive. Things had deteriorated on the house over the years, and I did not have the strength inwardly or outwardly to make the necessary repairs. The insurance company informed us that they would no longer insure our house unless those repairs were made.

James was working on various construction and cabinet-making jobs through this time. He was able to help some, but James was like I was when I was his age, not overly enthusiastic about working for his dad. In my conversations with Bill, he volunteered to come down to help us with the work. Bill came down to Houston twice this summer, once in June, and again in August (I think). Both times he was with us for several days. James took off time from work while Bill was with us and the two worked well together. I also, like James, do better when I am working with another man, and so I was able to assist with the work as well.

We redid much of the outer trim, redid some siding, and painted everything. We had to build out some of the eaves that were just bare rafters. It was great having Bill with us in our home and seeing the needed work progressing well. Bill and I spent much of our non-working time in good fellowship together.

Because we did not finish everything needed the first time, Bill came down again in August, after Kyle and Shelbie’s wedding. This second time we were able to finish everything required by the insurance company.

I want to share a couple of instances that happened during Bill’s second visit. We were out front. Bill was painting the front door and I was putting up some window trim. Several people came walking down the street whom we perceived to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Getting entangled in conversation with people like that is not something inside my autistic framework. I moved to go inside, but Bill, standing in my way and laughing, said that he would call them over. I froze in horror. In that moment, Bill saw in my eyes that my disability is real. He did not call to them, but let me pass.

The second incident was my own foolishness. I can’t stand what I call “piddling,” that is, wasting time doing unnecessary things in the construction process. Bill, on the other hand, does, in my estimation, a fair bit of “piddling.” At one point, he was insisting on doing something that was NOT needed, meaning that he would not be doing something that was needed. In the end, we tussled together over whatever item he was working on as he insisted on doing it and I insisted that he not. This, as I say, was completely foolish on my part.

The next morning early, Bill came out to sit next to me at my computer where I was doing my early-morning writing. I immediately turned to him and apologized for my foolish actions. Yet I took it a step further, into the wondrous truths I was writing. I said to him, “Bill, in all things we place God-Love as our only connection together, regardless of anything that seems to be contrary.” I then prayed that very thing in a simple prayer, that our Father as Love is all our connections together, regardless.

As I prayed with Bill, all the constraint I felt inside towards him and towards my own foolishness vanished, and I knew that our Father truly is with us.

“Thank you, Bill, so much, for your friendship, for all you have done for me and for my family, and for your willingness to be taught of the Lord together with me.”

Through August I completed the chapters of The River of Life and was ready to start whatever came next. But before I bring that in, my son Kyle’s wedding to Shelbie Stephens fits in next.

Kyle and Shelbie
Throughout 2017 and 2018, Kyle and Shelbie’s relationship had grown until they knew that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. There was a problem, though, and that was that Shelbie’s father had reservations concerning Kyle and was not willing to give his blessing to their marriage. Because of their respect for him, they waited for a season.

Through these months I visited with Kyle and Shelbie individually concerning the expectation of God through some of the difficulties they faced and we all prayed together that God would turn Mr. Stephen’s heart. In July, the Lord spoke to Mr. Stephens while he was worshipping in a Sunday service, that it was indeed of Him for Kyle and Shelbie to marry. Mr. Stephens then freely gave his blessing.

Kyle and Shelbie were married on Friday, August 2, 2019.  

A few days before the wedding, Maureen and I went to a restaurant with Kyle and Shelbie and with Shelbie’s parents, Herb and Elizabeth Stephens. We had a good time together; there was a mutual kindness.

Maureen’s wedding gift to Kyle and Shelbie included the rental of a lovely little park with a gazebo or pavilion on Heights Boulevard in The Heights – Marmion Park. Shelbie loved this area of Houston, as did we all, and especially wanted a wedding in such a pavilion. Although the gazebo was not large, it was just the right size for the wedding and all the guests.

Matthew and Johanna flew down from Canada, with little Gabriel. This was the first time I got to see my first grandson. Claude and Lois came down as well as the Sanchez’s. Will Fonder flew in from Colorado Springs.

It was a beautiful wedding, graced by the Lord. Kyle and Shelbie were married by Andrew Johnson, the pastor of the Spirit-filled Baptist Church where Kyle had been attending for some years. We had a reception in the fellowship hall at the church. Kyle and Shelbie then made their first home in an apartment complex just a couple of miles south of our house on Fernbank.

Two Wondrous New Writing Tasks
Around the first of July, I finally began probably the largest and certainly one of the most exciting of all my writing tasks, The Jesus Secret II. At this point I had completed the almost-final versions of Paul’s letters for the JSV, my own attempt at translating portions of the New Testament.

When I wrote The Jesus Secret originally, I was all set to continue with the second volume, that is, Galatians through Revelation. The problem was that the first statement of faith on which to write in Galatians was “I Hold Utterly to Paul’s Gospel.” What is Paul’s gospel? I did not know just how much I did not know. What I did know was that the anointing to continue vanished from me and I could not do it.

Through the years since, I had wanted to write that second volume, but how did not come. I toyed with a number of different approaches that went nowhere. Yet Peter Douglas, in particular, expressed how eager he was to have The Jesus Secret II in his hands, and so I continued to hold before the Lord how I might start it.

By this summer of 2019, having completed Knowing Jesus As He Is and Set My People Free, I finally felt that I understood, at least in part, Paul’s gospel. To be honest, I did not fully know Paul’s gospel until I had completed Romans 8 in The Jesus Secret II in October of 2019.

Then, I chose to merge portions of the JSV with the statements of faith; this gave the verses from whence these truths of our being like Jesus actually come. And, because Thessalonians was the second portion of the New Testament written, after James’s letter, I began with Thessalonians, placing the order of the books of the New Testament mostly in the order in which they were written. I am convinced that this is an important order for our understanding. The early church did not have Paul’s gospel as he wrote it for its first twenty-five years, and it did not have John’s gospel in written form for its first sixty-five years. Except for John and the writer of Hebrews, no other New Testament writer actually understood Paul’s gospel.

Although The Jesus Secret II follows the same concepts as the first Jesus Secret, it is much more intense and focused and the truth of Christ as us is far more developed. When I could not write any further in The Jesus Secret, I believed at the time that God wanted me to absorb and live in this wondrous relationship of union with Christ before I would return to The Jesus Secret at a whole new level. I was completely correct. This is my longest writing task, however. I hope I will have it finished within four years. I have just started on 1 John while writing this chapter of my account, well on my way, albeit slowly, to completion.

Then, the second wondrous (and terrible) writing task I began in August, was this autobiography, Prepare a Path. Writing this account is the single most life-changing experience I have known and among the most traumatic.

I had written part of the first chapter, “My Origins,” in the spring of 2017 and about my time at Graham River when I was still living in Maple, Texas, but now writing my account would be in earnest.

I had wanted to write this account for years because my life was a tangled mess to me, and I wanted to make some sense of it. When I wrote about my childhood and youth, however, something or Someone else began to take this exercise in a direction I never expected, that I was giving the account of my life required in the presence of a Carrying and a Devoted God. And that my primary task was to place the Lord Jesus upon every moment, circumstance, and person with whom I had interacted.

But my understanding of what God was doing as He wove Christ Jesus all through what I had imagined was only confusion and loss developed only slowly. The bigger thing for me through the writing of each chapter, was that things that were filled with pain and hidden away were now brought out into the light and HEALED. They were healed because I placed the Lord Jesus into my memories of those difficult things and because I spoke favor and grace into each person with whom I was involved.

I finished with my youth by the end of August and proceeded with pulling in my chapters on Graham River in September. Something else was happening through this August and September, however, that was really exciting to me.

The Zoom Meetings Begin
Through this summer, I had exchanged emails with Jerry Onyszczak, who seemed very eager to learn more, as well as with Phyliss Smith who was moving back to the same area west of Nashville. Jerry suggested that he and I connect on the Zoom app so that we could fellowship face to face. This level of connection long distance with a stranger was a bit much for me, but, as I thought about it, I realized that the Zoom app might actually be a way to bring readers together with me for fellowship. The truth is, this was the Lord, so He enabled me to work through whatever difficulties I might have had.

I communicated with Bill and Pete and we attempted a Zoom meetup on August 25, but ran into a number of difficulties. By September first, I had worked out those connection problems and we had another meeting, this time joined by Christopher Küttner of Germany and Dennis Rhodes of Australia. Jerry Onyszczak may have been with us as well. It was difficult for Dennis, because 8 AM my time was the middle of the night for him.

That same morning then, I included an invitation to all my readers to join with us on Sunday morning, September 7, for our first full Zoom meeting. I do not remember who joined with us when, but from this start, Lanny Gao, Rachelle Ross, and Karen Leigh of South Africa have always been part of our meetings each Sunday. Jerry’s wife, Ellie, often joined him in these first Zoom meetings.

Now, I really wanted to impart the word of Christ which I share face to face with Phyliss Smith. I knew that the Lord Jesus wanted her, in particular, to know union with Him. For that reason, I communicated through August with Jerry Onyszczak as well as Bill Horton concerning a trip to Nashville to share this word with several gathered there.

My idea, then, was to use the Zoom meeting to “practice” what I would share in face to face meetings in the Onyszczak’s home. I wanted to give an introduction to union with Christ, to symmorphy, and to the wondrous sharing of life with God I was coming to know. I called this short series, “Come into the Feast.”

Now, I am limited in the ability to lead conversation and discussion, that is, I can do so only inside of prescribed paths, as a teacher in a classroom. I am also limited in the propensity to prolong conversation in such group settings. For this reason, the Zoom meetings have been primarily a few minutes of greetings and conversation at the start, then I share the Word, then I give opportunity for questions and comments regarding what is shared. My first times of sharing were only 30 to 45 minutes long. They have become longer since.

I want to include something Christopher Küttner shared with me after his first full Zoom meeting with us. – “My feeling during our time together was joy. I could see us as Christ, but the more surprising thing was that I saw my own face as one of you guys, if that makes sense. And as you said, God does what He says He does. And when it happens, it suddenly is clear that it could not be any other way.”

Another Trip to Nashville
As I shared, I continued in communication with Jerry and Bill concerning a trip to Nashville. Jerry was very welcoming, that there would be a number of people who would want to gather with us in his home for meetings and fellowship. We set the dates for October 4-6, 2019, Friday through Sunday.

On September 14, I included these comments in my regular letter.

~ I am visiting a small number of brethren near Dickson, Tennessee, the first weekend of October. Bill Horton, from northwestern Kansas, is planning to be there and has helped me enormously in doing that part that is difficult for me to do, and that is arranging all the specifics beforehand. Fellowship is important, and there will be much time for fellowship; nonetheless, it is of great importance to me to impart Christ in power and in specific truth.

~ For that reason, we have worked out six scheduled “meetings.” Friday, October 4 at 10 AM and at 4 PM – Saturday, October 5 at 10 AM and at 4 PM – and Sunday, October 6 at 10 AM and at 4 PM. As far as I know right now, the gatherings will be in someone’s home. If you live within a few hours drive of Nashville and wish to join with us, I’m sure you will be welcome.

~~~
As I shared, I relied a lot on Bill to interface with Jerry and Ellie to work out all the details of our time with them.

I then created twelve specific “lessons” that would include Power Point presentations. I would teach two lessons per session. In essence, I covered the central ruling verses, beginning with being filled with God in weakness and ending with the ruling verse and our actions of faith.

Now, as a teacher, I wanted to give a dynamic teaching. Yet it had been many years since I had stood up front to share the word, and even a few years since I had been in a classroom. The result was that I over-thought it. I did not know what equipment would be available, and so I purchased a number of items from Amazon that would enable me to present my Power Point slides through a large-screen TV and with a remote control. I charged a few hundred dollars worth of stuff to Maureen’s credit card.

I left for Nashville on Wednesday, October 2 in a rented car. At this point in time, we had only the blue Toyota, which Maureen needed. I drove up through Arkansas and stayed in an Airbnb northeast of Little Rock. This was one of the most enjoyable Airbnb experiences I have had. I went a bit out of my way to Memphis to drive through the two remaining counties in Arkansas that I yet needed. I now had every county in Arkansas.

I arrived at Jerry and Ellie’s home near Dickson, just west of Nashville, Tennessee late Thursday afternoon. They greeted me warmly. I would stay in their spare bedroom and the meetings would be held in their living room. Bill had also arrived that day, but was staying with a pastor friend whom he had known in the past.

I was quite tired from the trip, and so I went to bed early. But I hit a snag. I could not sleep. I was in the Onyszczak’s home Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, and I was able to sleep only around four hours each night. I do not do well with such lack of sleep, but I soldiered on.

Now, God was doing something very specific and very important in me through this experience, whatever blessing He wanted to be through me to others. Through the next week after my return home, I wrote the chapter of this text, “Heart with Heart.” In that chapter, I refer to this weekend of sharing the word in the Onyszczak’s home. I do not want to repeat here everything I shared there, but I would suggest you read through that chapter again to have the full picture.

On Friday morning our first meeting began at 10 AM. I hooked up my new gadgets to Jerry’s TV beforehand and got everything working right. In attendance that morning were Jerry and Ellie, Bill Horton, a sister who reads my letters who had driven down from Kentucky but was able to stay only that first morning, Phyllis Smith and another elderly lady who was her friend, and the man and wife of whom I speak in “Heart with Heart.”

I will quote this much. ~ “There was a couple, man and wife, in attendance in the first session on Friday morning. Jerry Onyszczak opened our time together in the Spirit of Christ. Then the sister began to speak in prophetic utterance, directing the service as she wished, in exuberance, in dance, in outflowing abundance. She quoted from the “gospel of Thomas.”

~ “I receive all things as from my Father, so this did not bother me at all. Once I started sharing, several times I connected what I was sharing with what she had shared. I did this to honor Christ as her.”

There were fewer people there that afternoon, but I continued the teaching, looking at the One who stumbles under a cross He cannot carry. I had brought a number of my books with me, so they were available for a donation in-between the meetings. We all ate lunch together each day. I also put out a little offering box for donations. I had shared with Jerry my hope that there would be provision for the costs of the trip. That is a normal expectation when one travels to minister, and fully appropriate.

Saturday morning I was even more restrained from lack of sleep, and thus I was stiff during our praise time together. I was able to share the word freely and in the Spirit, however. I share in “Heart with Heart” my experiences that day with the man and wife who had returned just for that second morning service.

Saturday afternoon, after the sharing had begun, several more people came in to hear what I was teaching. One of those was Pastor Bob Taranjo, whom Bill had known from earlier times, along with several from his congregation. I was aware that there was a sense of them “coming to check me out.” My topics that afternoon were “The Ark of the Covenant” and “Energeoing and Sustaining All.” I believe my sharing was good, and I gave everyone a copy of Knowing Jesus As He Is as they left.

Now, the fellowship with everyone, in-between and after the meetings, was mostly very good. Besides the press coming from the man and wife and their wrongful definitions of me, there was a brief, but very discordant note that arose. Jerry was talking excitedly about his vision of the fulness of Christ, what that might mean, yet tinged with “superiority.” Inside of that, he mentioned deeper-truth Christians who have passed on and thus who now know what it’s all about. Because the heavens are open to us, he intimated that some of these “superior” Christians could visit with us to let us know the truth.

I do not place myself as anything, but this could not continue unchallenged. I said, quietly but firmly, in a moment when all could hear me, “We do NOT visit with the dead.” Jerry protested and began explaining himself more fervently. Again I said, in the same quiet and firm tone, “We do NOT visit with the dead.”

That ended that present discussion, but later I heard Jerry remonstrate to someone else concerning what right I had to so speak. I don’t remember what he said exactly, but his defense of himself was spoken in the same Christian rebellion in which Korah moved.

There is no question in my mind that someone hearing from “superior” Christians, without physical bodies in the heavens, is hearing only demons. First, we must be delivered from our lust for the “super-christ” before we can know a God who places Himself beneath of all.

Neither would I ever, upon hearing such a quiet and firm word spoken to me in the anointing, receive it as anything but God’s correction of me. We are in no game.

At the same time, I had pieced together through various things said, that Jerry was glued to Fox News and to the political concerns of this world. He said things that rejected my understanding of how evil actually works.

That evening, Bill and I went for a drive so that we could visit privately together. I was leaning on Bill in a very similar way in which I had leaned upon Don Howat. Bill was my help through all these things. And so we talked through all the difficulties together. In fact, Bill had also been presented with similar difficulties in the place where he was staying. It’s not that we came to any conclusion; it’s that sharing such things together is what it’s all about.

The truth is, however, that I was there for Phyliss, and in all our times of fellowship, I tried to have some quality time with her.

Saturday night was another four-hour-night for me. On Sunday, I really did not have the strength for two more full meetings. Instead, we all gathered around the breakfast table and shared Christ together for a couple of hours. Through this good time, I was able to include the more important things from the lessons I had prepared for the day.

There was only about $75 in the offering, including from the sale of my books. Phyliss also wanted to fill up my car with gas. No other money was provided to offset the hundreds of dollars I had put on Maureen’s credit card.

That evening it was just Jerry, Ellie, and myself. We watched a funny movie together, but I could sense that a wall had now come up between them and myself. I retired early, but again, slept even less than four hours. As I pondered why, I guessed that, since my room was in the midst of massive wi-fi connections on three sides, I was basically in a “microwave” box and thus could not sleep long. I cannot know for sure, however.

I woke up just after midnight. I could not bear to lie in bed, so I thought that, since I had prepared that evening to leave early in the morning, I might just as well go now.

I left the Onyszczak home before 1 AM and drove to a nearby grocery store. I got something to drink and then tried to sleep in the car in the parking lot. I was not successful, and so by 2 AM I headed out on my way back to Houston. I got onto the Natchez Trace Parkway and headed towards Alabama. My intention was to get more counties in Alabama and Mississippi and then to turn west on I-10 towards Houston.

Before continuing, I must expand a bit more on my expectations for this trip and what happened to them. I was continuing to wrestle with the huge question – If this word I share is truly of God, then He ought to anoint me to share that word with power.

Here is what I wrote a couple of months later. My topic was the anointing.

~ “I doubt that any ministry in the Christian church during my life-time was anointed by God with power greater than that anointing which was upon Sam Fife. And the evidence for that assertion was apparent in every direction.

~ “I went to Tennessee in the slim hope that God would prove that the word I share is of Him by anointing me with a slight portion of that in which Sam Fife moved. And please understand this, there is no doubt in my mind that if I had been as Sam Fife preaching in that home, the Spirit of God would have come upon that whole group in mighty demonstrations of power, the pastor attending would likely have become a prominent ministry alongside of me, and all of them would have sold everything and moved into Christian community. They would have been caught in the power and vision of God. That is what happened over and over everywhere Sam Fife went.

~ “I will not complain about the circumstances, but God made sure I knew that He was doing no such thing through me.”

I did almost doze for nearly an hour in a rest stop along the Natchez Trace highway, but I continued on, then, still in the dark. Suddenly, I saw up ahead a flashing light and slowed down. It was a policeman on foot in front of a tree that had fallen across my side of the road. He was waving his flash light down towards the other side of the road, a signal that to me meant proceed cautiously, which I did. But as I drew up alongside of him, he motioned angrily at me, and I rolled down my window. He screamed at me for disobeying him, but finally let me continue on. The normal signal to stop, waving the flashlight as an X, was not what he had done.

I was out of Tennessee and into Alabama not long after the sun came up. I was so glad to be gone from there; I felt like a dog having had his tail caught in the door as he was being booted out. I especially agonized over the fact that no provision had come to cover my costs.

I always enjoy driving through Alabama, and after this trip, I now have only one county left to get in that state. I thought I might get a motel in southern Mississippi for the night. But when I arrived in that area in late afternoon, I could not conceive prolonging the trip. I thought, “I’ll just drive a bit further.” By the time I was on I-10 heading west, all thought of stopping for the night was gone. Home was in my sight, and I drank all the coffee I needed to get there by 11 PM.

I surprised Maureen, who was not expecting me until the next day. That was one of the longest days of my life, and it was so good to be home.

It was while I was driving down through Alabama that morning that God gave me His Word concerning all my expectations. As I said, I was distressed over the fact that all this trip was now on Maureen’s debt on top of not having experienced the anointing in power which I had imagined. But as I checked my email on my phone, I saw that just that morning Lanny Gao had sent me twice her usual monthly donation, enough money to cover the gas, car rental, and Airbnb for the trip itself. I had not actually needed any of those tech gadgets, so that loss would remain on me.

Nonetheless, the moment I saw that money in my account from Lanny, it was God speaking a word to me. Here is how I formulated that word from God in my mind, “Son, I do not give you a ministry ‘out there,’ but I have given you these precious ones, these few in the Zoom meetings, and I have anointed My word in you for them.”

I have not looked for any outward “ministry” since. And God has been faithful in anointing me for His own intentions.

Another “Winter”
From October through December, I felt subdued and a bit discouraged towards God and the flow of Word. I did continue to write and to share in the ongoing Zoom meetings each Sunday morning. But I turned most of my time and interests towards another attempt to build an income-producing presence online.

What I attempted to do was to establish two websites, www.thewritingconservatory.com and www.thelearningconservatory.com. I hoped to fill them with valuable content and then earn passive income through many affiliate links, etc. I signed on with another email service as well so that I could increase the flow of traffic to these sites.

I worked hard on these websites for a couple of months, and all that is needed to have affiliate links and internet connections that will draw traffic. The websites are still there and you can see how beautiful they are and how much work went into them. I don’t do anything with them now, however.

The problem is that I hit a brick wall. You see, what I knew about making an income on the Internet in 2008 no longer held true. The avenue I tried, Ezine Articles, slammed shut. Then I tried another avenue to gain traffic, but that also had been closed out by how the Internet works today. Then I thought that I would try making a free mini-course to offer on my email signup. I worked hard on that, but I do not do well speaking into a camera for I have no faces to whom to speak. By mid-December, I had completely run out of steam, and so I set aside, once again, this effort to earn money online.

I wrote “Heart with Heart” for my autobiography and sent it out on October 19. As I said, you could read it again, for it also fits here just as much. Then I wrote about my time at the New Mexico community and at Bowens Mill in November and December. I finished “A Song in Great Difficulty” before the end of December.

This was the first time that I had written about my years living at the Ridge. Here is what I wrote in “A Time of Reset.”

~ “Truly, truly, the dark hole inside that has been my memory of Bowens Mill is now filled with love and joy, with memories of good things and with a completely different perspective of the difficult things. This is so wonderful.”

The same was true concerning my New Mexico experience. Writing this account had now become something I had never expected. Not only was there such healing coming to me, healing that has proven to be PERMANENT, but I was beginning to discover a clear and certain purpose of God in the ongoing patterns of my life. This I had not expected.

Nonetheless, I was glancing through pictures of Bowens Mill just a few days ago and marveled at the fact that my only impressions are thoughts of goodness and blessing.

I think that my sharing in the Zoom meetings might have been a bit subdued for the few weeks after my return from Nashville. On November 10, 2019, however, I began an exciting new series called Tabernacle Teaching.  The Tabernacle of Moses is clearly God’s pattern of organization for gospel truth. The writer’s of the New Testament all based our salvation on the elements of this pattern and make it clear that this path is God’s WAY for the believer. Nonetheless, Christianity hardly knows what that means.

In this series of teachings, I brought in all that I had learned from Sam Fife, entirely filtered into the present word of Christ our life. By the end of December we had progressed into the Holy Place.

Our fellowship together in the Zoom meetings was very precious to everyone. Different people joined with us on occasion or for a short period of time, but from then until now, the gathering has been consistent. Maureen is able to be with us every other Sunday. Then it is Bill Horton, Pete Douglas, and Christopher Küttner, as well as Lanny Gao, Rachelle Ross, and Karen Leigh. Phyliss Smith could never make a direct connection on Zoom work, but she calls me and joins with us by phone about half the time. She is able to hear the others and to share as well.

Even though I do most of the talking, I do not see this as me teaching them, but as God teaching us together. God does not give me His word, He gives US His word.

And as I settled myself with joy into this “limited” place of ministry, so God prepared to open the floodgates of heaven for such wondrous Word about to flow through us together.

I never heard from Jerry again, but I bless him and Ellie with all my heart. I know that Jesus carries them and that He does all things well. I join with the Father in the expectation that some good fruit will come in their lives through my brief encounter with them.