3. Double or One

This great and massive split, this constant warfare inside of me, did not result in two, but three. You see, “I” could be in the flesh or “I” could be in the spirit, but “I” had to decide. More than that, “I” was frightened and vulnerable. “I” was lost. And so “I” ran back and forth, frightened of one, loving the other, and vice versa, confused and uncertain.

© Daniel Yordy - 2014

. . . ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:6-8

Through my twenties and early thirties, I was very strong, strong of heart and strong of will. I would tackle anything inside my inclination, no matter how big the task. I was never satisfied with a regular load, I required the full load I could carry, almost a double load. For instance, in my third semester in college, I took on 28 credits, basically double what is recommended for most. It was just a bit much, but I still managed to pull off A's with maybe one B.

I thrived on challenge.

I'm not saying this to boast of myself, but to lay before you the extreme contrast with what my strength has been these last twenty years.

Twenty two years ago, through the last months of 1992, my strength was shattered. I never recovered.

Until now.

I want to share two things before continuing to share with you what God is doing in me. And I share these things with you that you might contend with the God who is doing all things in you.

First, since I am not connected to a series at the present moment, except the task of figuring out The Jesus Secret Volume II, which is a lot of work, I am left with the one thing that interests me, knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and what “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ” means and is in all practical life. But that is the focus of The Jesus Secret II. (I wrote this paragraph before deciding to turn these letters into the series, Musings on Union.)

Second, I give thanks in and for all things. I see nothing of my life as anything other than God directing my way from inside of me, that I might know Him. I give thanks for twenty years of weakness, for in my weakness, I have come to know the God who fills our weakness with all of Himself. And except for one individual, a man whom I leave entirely in the Lord – far away from me, all with whom my life was intertwined through those months are dear and precious brethren whom I honor and love.

That does not mean they did not lie to me.

Last night (when I wrote this) Jesus and I duked out a psychopathic bully. We stood up for ourselves. We kicked him straight in the chest with a kangaroo kick that sent him flying right out of our universe.

And as we creamed the guy, we told all the others hovering in the background to shove off.

Let me explain, and in explaining I want to do the same thing with the most wicked doctrine found in Christian thinking; I want to kick it right out of our universe, Jesus and I together, in just the same way.

One other thing before continuing. The world is wicked, utterly, utterly wicked. The wickedness is more extreme and in-your-face screw-you-God than we can comprehend. And the United States of America sits at the top of that wickedness, with Israel as a knife at its heart, two filthy and violent nations that are at war with God.

The justice of God requires that both nations, Israel and America, be devastated with war and misery; as they have done to others, so they must reap.

On the premise that less is more, I want you to be utterly overwhelmed at the horror of the wickedness of this world.

And then, I want you to turn immediately from that wickedness and see a Man rising to His feet in Gethsemane and walking the Path of the Atonement, laying down His life for all the enemies of God.

And I want you to see that the size and scope and extent of that one thing is so far larger than all the horror of all wickedness in both heaven and earth that all of it just seems to vanish inside an empty, empty tomb.

We will have full reason to know the horror and extent of the wickedness of this world.

Yet we keep ever in mind that one thing has already swallowed all of it up inside itself.

A Man laying down His life by His love for Father.

That the world may know – And we also.

This is the One we put upon ourselves, spirit, soul, and body – the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus and I do all things together.

You see, my former confidence and love of challenges existed entirely inside an autistic shell, Asperger's Syndrome. That meant that I tootled along inside my own little world, pouring myself out, giving all of my strength and ability to others, utterly oblivious to their existence as persons, let alone how they perceived me.

I carried in my heart a full sense of responsibility towards the Christian community in which I lived, and whenever I heard anyone express a concern about this or that need, something within my scope, I gave myself utterly to the joy and challenge of meeting that need inside of the only way I knew how.

I did not know, at all, that others defined me in a totally different way. Many others saw only the outer autistic shell, a shell of which I had no knowledge, and they defined me by how they themselves interpreted the world, that is, by themselves, their own self-reflection, as we all do.

My second year of college, the winter of 1987-1988, during which I turned 31, was a momentous year for me. College itself, a place in which I felt accepted, including by some of the girls who were my classmates, who accepted me as I was, along with my role of teaching junior high and high school students, was drawing me, bit by bit, out of my vast shell of protection and oblivion. That same year was the time of deliverance, when Sister Jane Miller taught her course on spiritual warfare, and God moved mightily among us in power and great glory. Deliverance was also a slow cracking open of my shell of protection inside of which I was supremely confident.

Maureen came to the college at the beginning of my third year and we almost immediately began to walk together as close friends. After we had graduated together in 1990 and had finished our time of engagement, we were married in September of 1990. The next summer we had our own little house, and in the late summer of 1991, our son, Kyle, was born.

Through all of this process, God was bringing me out of my shell of oblivion, making me aware of other people and thus aware of myself.

Through these two years, from the summer of 91 to the summer of 93, I was utterly vulnerable. On the one hand I was now, for the first time in my life, without the outer shell of being oblivious to everyone and to “what they thought.” I did not understand people; they were very confusing to me. But nothing anyone had done or said to me had any ability to puncture the overwhelming confidence in which I had moved in my protected bubble prior to that time.

You see, when I look back at the things I went through prior to that time of vulnerability, nothing carries any emotional weight against me. Yes, I went through needed deliverance, both by spiritual warfare and by walking with John Eldredge through all the sorrows of my life. Yet my memory of those things, prior to the summer of 1991, carries no emotional weight. They have been gone, like water off a duck's back, for some years now.

On the other hand, I was now a family man, a husband and a father. I had my own home. I was responsible for dear ones who were a most precious part of me. I was in my mid-thirties; surely I was now a man.

Now, let me re-iterate, as best I can, the most wicked doctrine ever conceived in the thinking of Christianity, a doctrine that sat upon me as the ruler over all things even as I found myself in the most vulnerable and unprotected time in my life.

This wicked, wicked thinking is best expressed by these words.

“There are two lives in me.”

There are two minds, there are two hearts, there are two wills, there are two natures inside of me.

I am double, double, double, double, double in all ways and in every direction.

Double, double, toil and trouble. Yes, Shakespeare had it right in the Scottish play. Something wicked this way comes.

There is a problem with the “double” metaphor, however. Double never stays two, but always quickly morphs into three and four and five.

Let me carefully lay before you the psychotic schizophrenia that Nicene theology creates, especially as it was amplified to hyper levels by the teachings of the fellowship in which I lived from age twenty to age forty one.

The lie begins with “you are two,” the same lie told in the garden – Since Christ is not your life, you have a life not Christ. Remember that the lie is never stated directly, but only implied, the foundation beneath the spoken words.

These “two” that were inside of me were taught and expanded on in every direction over many years. I heard the teaching; I received it into myself. I thought it was the truth of God; therefore I could only live by this constant conflict of two.

One of those two was “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

The second of those two was – your “heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.”

We were taught and believed that these “two” were at violent and irreconcilable war with each other and that this war would not cease until we truly and continuously “stayed on the cross.”

I was taught that my will was in continual opposition to God's will and that the only way I could ever know “God's will” was to absolutely oppose my own will.

This evil thing inside of me, always at war with God, was typically called “the flesh,” although “antichrist” became another name as time went on. Yet all definitions of this evil thing in me always were rooted in the definition of the human heart. We were taught that our hearts were evil, and that never never should we be found in support of our own hearts.

At the same time and in equal measure, we were taught of Christ in us, of seeing Christ in our brother, of the glory of Christ revealed through us. Living and walking in the spirit was a big part of our lives.

When I said “hyper” schizophrenia, I meant HYPER.

Now, I cannot speak of others; I can speak only of myself. My wife, who lived in that context from age four until age thirty five, tells me now that she never believed that stuff, ever. She knew that Jesus lived in her heart and that was it. I can finally believe her.

This great and massive split, this constant warfare inside of me, did not result in two, but three. You see, “I” could be in the flesh or “I” could be in the spirit, but “I” had to decide. More than that, “I” was frightened and vulnerable. “I” was lost. And so “I” ran back and forth, frightened of one, loving the other, and vice versa, confused and uncertain.

Like James said, Like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. It's not that I doubted, either. It's that I believed with all my heart a most satanic theology.

But the schizophrenia does not stop with three, it continues, severely.

“Christ” was also TWO. You see, there was “the Christ” in me, this “me” when I was successfully walking in the spirit, in obedience to God and in submission to the elders, dying every moment to my flesh. But, there was also the “Christ” in heaven, that is, Jesus Christ.

The Christ in me was me as a mature son of God, walking in the “nature” of God. Christ Jesus, the Savior, was, however, an entirely SEPARATE person.

As time went on in that fellowship, the emphasis changed dramatically from “walking in the spirit” to “hearing from God and doing what He says.”

So, this “God,” this “Jesus” was some THING completely OTHER from frightened and vulnerable “me.” In fact, in the reality of thinking, a gap, a space existed entirely in between “me” and this Person from whom must come the “voice.” I had to “hear” this other Being say something to me. Then, by my own ability, I had to hop instantly to do exactly what this “voice” said to me in exactly the way the voice said it. Otherwise, I did not “love” Jesus.

As I have shared, however, I do not do voices. I did not hear God saying to me, “Do this,” or “Do that,” ever.

But, of truth, this “Word” speaking at me, giving me instructions on how I was to perform, was also another very distinct entity, the Bible.

And so, for many, the Bible exists as another split in their psychosis, something outside of themselves, like God, something they must pick and choose from, hoping to get the “correct” commandments, but not being sure, so picking the easiest, the most obvious. Some pick making their women wear do-hinckeys on their head and call that “obeying” Jesus. It's easy for some men to force such things on women and pride themselves in their own holiness.

It is schizophrenic psychosis. – It is dishonesty.

So, “I” was two, yet three, “me” being the frightened one running back and forth.

And I was. I was scared.

And Christ was also two, the one “in me,” and the one far away from me speaking two, a voice I had to get right and the Bible, a confused mess I had to figure out. And if I did not “obey,” then I did not “love” Jesus.

There were also demons inside of me, part of me, part of what was wrong with me, part of why “I” could not get it right, part of why “I” could not walk in the spirit, part of why “I” was always in trouble with God. Deliverance, then, became, in part, a psychotic ritual of splitting people even further into pieces. Some, when finding that I was not “delivered” by their ministry, even though they absolutely read me wrong from beginning to end by their so-called “discernment,” wrote me off as unfixable.

Some never considered that Christ might actually be in ME.

But there was another entity in this continually dividing and continually opposing schizophrenia in which almost all Christians live. There were the elders. The elders, in the communities in which we lived, were viewed as being in the place of Jesus to us. As we submitted to them, we were submitting to Jesus. Jesus came to us through the elders. – The elders were “above” us in the Lord.

Now, this theology is no different from all Nicene Christianity. The only difference is that Christian community intensifies everything, making what is considered “normal” in most Christian thinking into totally “hyper” in our experience.

This, as I have described, was the mind in which I lived, fully and without recourse.

Inside this religious thinking, at the same time as my own little family began, I was coming out of the autistic shell of protection and oblivion in which I had lived.

I was like a clam or a turtle out of its shell, raw and unprotected, completely vulnerable to everything.

However, the year 1992 was also my time of greatest glory, the full expression of all I knew and could do that had developed inside that bubble of supreme confidence in which I had lived.

Through the summer of that year I designed the Graham River Tabernacle, drawing out every single individual item in that building and envisioning its construction, step by step. In the early fall, sixty five men gathered at Graham River and in four days we raised the building, from just the footer already there on the morning we started to moving the family into their fully usable new facility on the evening of the fourth day.

I have never known the anointing of God upon me to direct as I did through that time, like conducting a symphony orchestra. Everything of that building came out from me as I circled from one crew to the next, making sure that everything moved forward in full synchronization.

It was for me the fullest expression of heavenly glory in the human experience.

On the morning after, a Sunday morning, all the workers and the Graham River family gathered together in their new meeting room for a time of worship. There was such a sense upon all of us that we had together experienced something incredibly holy.

Through all that experience, however, I drew my strength from one of those men of whom I have spoken many times, Don Howat, an elder at Blueberry at the time. He walked with me in construction, drawing from my knowledge and ability, always treating me as his equal in every way.  I looked to Don as my strength, yet he looked to me as his “boss” in the construction of the Graham River Tabernacle, one of my crew leaders.

As we returned to Blueberry after the experience, Don expressed to me his eagerness to see me included in a semi-formal meeting of men, some elders and some not elders, who discussed the various natural needs of the community. Even though Don was the voice of the two of us, most of the direction of the construction in the community came out of me. As I said, inside my little bubble of oblivion, I poured my heart out for others, giving myself away with all my strength in the only ways I knew how.

At times, when some “corrected” me, I had zero knowledge of what they were speaking; their words never related to anything real.

The elders said, “No.” For whatever reasons, Daniel Yordy was not allowed to sit with an informal group of men, my peers, to discuss the various natural needs of the community.

But this news was broken to me in a very particular way.

There was a man who had come to the community just a few months prior. I will call him Leo, not his name. Leo was direct and self-confident. Leo was an “expert” in leading men in work. Leo had many wonderful ideas for how the work of the community should be conducted differently than how it had been.

Leo was welcomed and honored by all. He had become the “natural” leader of the group of men who were discussing the needs of the community.

“Leo” was the most dishonest psychopath I have ever known. I sat in the school teaching my class, hearing him in the classroom on the other side of my divider, having been given three little eighth grade girls to “teach,” pouring vicious hatred and scorn into them, speaking evil of the community, of the elders, of everything.

“Leo” was the embodiment of scorn, covered by a mask of strength and ability.

Several days after we had returned from Graham River, we had another deliverance service, occasions that had become confusing for me, partly because much of what was being “cast out” was the characteristics of that person designed by God for Himself. I saw that then, but I did not know how to make it fit.

In the middle of the deliverance time, “Leo” took me upstairs to a private room. He began by telling me that “the elders” had made the decision that I was not mature enough to sit with the other men to discuss the natural work of the community. (I was thirty five years old, married and with a son of my own and had led all construction projects at Blueberry for the six years I had been there.)

He then spent about forty five minutes ripping me to shreds, mocking me in every conceivable way. He mocked me concerning the Graham River project and concerning my upbringing. He was a brilliant bully, the most powerful I have ever known. Every single word I attempted to raise in my own defense, he made sport of, hurling my words back at me in mockery and contempt.

Understand the mind in which I lived. I had embraced with all my heart and all the strength of my soul the belief that the elders stood in the place of Jesus in my life. All I knew in that moment was that this man had the full sanction of the elders. Had they not presented him and his ideas to all as a fresh new thing God was doing in the community? Was he not sharing with me the “decision” of the elders?

I knew that the elders had only “allowed” Don and I to do the Graham River Tabernacle project. They had not really supported it, believing that I did it entirely for my own self-pride. (I did not understand any of this, it was all so very confusing to me.)

You see, never once did the Blueberry leadership ever honor me as me for all that I gave from my heart for them. You cannot go anywhere at Blueberry today without seeing all the labor of my hands poured out for others. Yet, when people were recognized and honored, I was always skipped over. They believed in their  theology, that there was something very wrong with me. Neither they nor I knew anything about autism. But that would have made no difference. If they had known, the assault against the “autistic demon” that would have ensued would, without question, have broken my mind.

I am so very glad they did not know. God is always kind.

After forty five minutes of the most intense and devastating psychological abuse I have ever known, I did not return to the service. I walked home to my own little cabin, got in bed, and, as I drew the covers over me, I drew darkness over me as well, as the only protection I could find. – Jesus was far away.

I waited for Don to come rescue me.

He never came, not until a year-and-a-half later.

My bubble of confidence was blown to shreds. I never recovered.

Several weeks later, in the middle of cold winter, I came down with pneumonia. I have told of that story elsewhere, in “Christ versus Superman,” found in The Kingdom Rising.

Don Howat was the brother who, with his family there in their car outside the hospital, saved my life as they interceded with God together for me.

But the antibiotics pumped into me at the same time, that is, the anti-life needed to kill the pneumonia just before it killed me, also killed ALL the pro-biotic life in my intestines.

My present understanding of how the body works informs me that the removal of all pro-biotic life from my body was a significant part of the source of twenty years of debilitating physical weakness, along with the face of a psychopathic bully from whom no one had rescued me.

I have known great healing and great deliverance. Learning about Aspergers and becoming comfortable with myself has brought such healing in so many directions. Speaking Christ my only life and KNOWING that my Father fills me full in full Covenant union with me at all times has so changed me from the inside out.

But even still, I could not look at those two years, from the summer of 1991 to the summer of 1993, without pain lurking in the background. And I have recounted for you only a few of the many confusing, confusing things that filled those two years during that short time when I was so utterly vulnerable.

Yet, in order to win back my strength, I knew, a few weeks ago, that I had to wade into that time and face all the darkness that still made some claim upon me.

A few letters back, I wrote these words that I had spoken to the Lord out of the cry of my own vulnerability, to know Him. “They lied to me. They lied to me. When they told me that You were far away from me in my distress, when they told me that my mistakes meant I was in trouble with You, they lied to me. And all those years of heartache came from something NOT TRUE. You are so close; You are my life and my breath. You are bound to me in perfect Covenant Bond forever. We walk together in all ways as one. Oh Father, I am so sorry for believing them, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to.”

Let me be honest. “They” were the voices of elders and apostles spoken into me during this time of my life.

Now, before continuing, I give God thanks for all things. These are my brethren, but, you will see as I share further, I could never have walked again with any of them except for HOW God has dealt with that whole experience now, in my life.

At the same time, one of the horrors of religious cultism is to blame the victim for his own pain and confusion. “If he had just yielded to God, he would not have been so hurt” or “He left because he was angry.” Any time I hear anything close to that concerning others, I am ready to duke it out right there on the spot. Such accusation is the scorn of the evil one.

I am a victor; I am not a victim. God together with me turns all things into unending goodness.

As I began to wade into the darkness from that time period, standing in my full union with Christ, placing the Lord Jesus Christ upon every incident and moment of that time, God took me through a very definite progression in which two incidents were of overwhelming significance in my life. – The first was a dream.

For that I must bring in one other person. Charity Titus was in many ways the leading elder at Blueberry. She was the administrator of the school and one of my main teachers in college. Charity was an arthritic invalid confined to a wheel chair and one of the strongest and most anointed women of God I have ever known.

At the same time, let me divide most leaders in the Christian church, including elders and apostolic ministry in the move, including the elders at Blueberry, into two equal groups. About one-half are bullies, and about one-half are not bullies. The one half who are bullies conduct their bullying in many different ways according to personality. By bullying I mean the willingness to push other people around for their own advantage – Control!

And yes, of the six men who were the leading apostolic ministries in the move through my years in that fellowship, half were bullies, including Sam Fife, and half were not. Sam Fife, in fact, elevated the practice of mistreating people into a virtue: “Just speaking the truth in love, brother.” – Neither love nor truth.

Charity Titus was most definitely on the NOT bully side. Yet she was strong and one of the most influential people in my life. Most of the time she spoke Christ into me, but at times her words were darkness. Let me give an example. When Maureen and I returned to Oregon in the summer of 1993 and Don and Martha Howat returned to Washington state at the same time, Charity spoke privately to me. She said, “God is not doing anything in the Pacific Northwest.”

Through the two years we spent in Oregon, I stood against that dark prophecy. And God did many wonderful things in the Pacific Northwest through us and through the Howats in spite of those words.

Thus, in the end, when I said, “They lied to me,” Charity's voice was one of those voices, even though I honored her influence in my life as primarily goodness.

Then, I had a dream. In my dream, I saw Charity Titus and my mother (both of whom are in heaven only at present) sitting across from each other at a little restaurant table. I knew that Charity had purposefully sought out my mother (who had visited at Blueberry and knew Charity) in order to reconcile with her. As I greeted them, Charity stood (there was no more wheel chair) and spoke words of present encouragement into me. Part of what she said to me was that, even though she had not understood my outer shell, she had always deeply admired me and seen a depth of the grace of God within me.

Then I awoke. In my awakened state, Charity Titus came to me, as I sensed in my spirit, and said to me: “Daniel, I was so wrong in how I perceived you and how I treated you. Will you please forgive me.”

I willingly and with all my heart forgave her. And in so doing, I understood that Charity is right now in the heavens, focusing her intercession and the believing of Jesus inside of her upon the victory of Christ through me right now upon this earth, through Daniel Yordy, and that she has joined purposefully with my mother for that very purpose.

You have no idea what it means for me not only to say that, but to know that it is true.

In that one moment, Charity Titus passed entirely out from the pain and confusion, fear and vulnerability, and became part of the strength and joy that fills my heart and propels me forward.

I am so glad. I am so very glad.

That had to happen first, before I could ever consider what happened next.

A few days later, in the middle of the night, as I was standing in the strength of my spirit in warfare against the remaining voices from that time, I faced “Leo” once again.

I kicked him, Jesus and I, just as hard as we could, with a full kangaroo kick in the chest, right out of our life.

I stood up for myself, and Jesus stood up with me for us.

And then I told all of the other voices, hovering in the back ground, all the “authority” figures who misused their place “above” me to shove off. I will not name the names, but I sure sent them packing.

They have no more authority over me.

And here is the most amazing, amazing, amazing thing.

Now, for the first time in so many years, I am able to look at each one of them in my thoughts, call each one by name, and see them as my brother or sister, equal with me. Now, for the first time, I would be able to walk with them in honor. Now, for the first time, I can reach out to them in compassion, knowing that they were and likely are far more confused than I ever was, whether they know it or not.

You see, when God says, “Above,” He is speaking from His point of view. From our point of view it means beneath. Those who are “beneath” you in the Lord.

A true ministry of God will always walk beneath of others, lifting them up, seeing them as superior and of greater honor, yet also walking with them as an equal, heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder.

Respect is something that is only ever given. Respect is never something “earned.” A person of respect gives respect to all; a person of disrespect grants respect to others only whey they have impressed him with their outward ability or performance.

The physical weakness is not necessarily lifted, but its root is gone. For the first time in 22 years, I can stand against it, not in the strength I once knew, but in the strength I know now .

His name is Jesus.

Yet I have not talked about the “One” in “Double or One.” Thus I must write another letter to do so.