Speaker: Welcome everyone to Faith and Purpose podcast.
Each episode of this podcast contains the personal testimony of an ordinary person
transformed by an extraordinary God.
My name is Kaylin and I'm here to introduce this podcast
for my friend Jesse Duke.
Jesse is a husband, father, author, life recovery guide, lay counselor,
and small group leader, but his most important role is disciple.
As a disciple of Jesus.
Jesse created this podcast to help other believers tell their faith stories.
We'll be hearing the personal testimonies of all sorts of people
who have one thing in common, Jesus has transformed their lives.
Jesus used parables because he created us to learn best through story.
And as we listen to how God has worked in others lives, we find encouragement
and inspiration for our own faith walk.
Whether you are already a believer or just a curious seeker, we believe that
as you listen to these stories, you will be encouraged on your own faith journey.
We are sure that God can speak to you through one of these episodes and that you
will see that our Heavenly Father truly works all things together for our good.
When we simply love and trust him.
If you are currently going through a trial, we believe that you will come
to see that your troubles, heartbreaks, and failures are not gravestones, but
stepping stones into new life in Christ.
Here's Jesse with today's guest.
Welcome everybody to faith and purpose podcast.
This would be a different kind of episode than the previous ones, because we have a
married couple clay and Casey claimer and their beautiful newborn daughter Emerson.
All together today.
This is episode 21.
And just to bring all up to speed.
We had Casey on episode 19, who told her story and then her husband clay
was on episode 21 just before this one.
Telling his story.
And if you hear some baby noises in the background, it's just
little Emerson chairman in.
if you haven't heard episodes 19 and 20, it would be helpful if you went back
and listened to each of their stories.
This episode will be both of them telling how God's been working in their lives.
Since they each received Jesus and allowed him to be in charge.
So Casey.
You were into witchcraft and the new age and all that.
And you told about how you had randomly read your Bible in the past
and how it was a mystery to you.
You were unable to understand it, but then one day you opened it up
to the book of Deuteronomy and all of a sudden you were able to get it.
And you got convicted about your lifestyle and then, and through
a series of events and burglar rating, things began to change and.
And you gave your life to the Lord.
And, shortly after that, as a result of Casey's new direction,
you clay began knocking on God's store and Jesus came to you in a.
Dramatic way.
And you were radically transformed.
I don't want to retail it for you, but if anyone.
Wants to hear it taking, go back to the last part of episode
20, to hear all about that.
but I want to to hear all about what is going on today
in your marriage and your life.
And how the Lord has been leading both abuse Since all this happened.
So who wants to start?
Jesse: Let
Clay: how it was when I converted to Christianity before Clayton did, because
that period of time was so important, I feel for my own sanctification.
And then for his.
Breakthrough because I know, I think as a Christian, we all know what it's like
to try to help someone see the truth and how hard and painful that can be, how
traumatizing, how it can be really hard because people have this idea of what
Christianity is, him and I come from very, I would say, Liberal families.
So growing up in a family where the Bible was seen more as the enemy
politically, then as a political weapon, then as a faith, even if
we were growing up Catholic, I think, later on in our childhoods.
I can't speak for him.
I can speak for me.
It was seen as roped into a whole, political ideology and not a something you
would want to do or want to look into or investigate, Christians were like crazy
people, that were like, super conservative and pro life and all these things, right?
So I'm raised thinking like that.
So I had a heart for where Clayton might be coming from when I converted.
And I was like, man, I know how crazy I must seem to my family and to him.
Cause I had, testified to my family, in person, what had happened to me.
So I had done that and I, and they knew what was going on.
it came to, I'm in this relationship with this man.
We're not engaged.
We're not married.
We're dating.
We're both divorced, both living at home with our parents.
And I was completely in love with him.
I really loved him.
I really wanted to stay with him.
I really wanted to be with him, but I knew that it wasn't going
to be easy to be with him.
If I was a Christian, he wasn't.
And I talked to a few Christians at church and they said, do not
yoke yourself with an unbeliever.
That's a biblical scripture about how if you're a Christian, it's not
recommended by God to marry or be, marry a non Christian or an unbeliever.
Now, a lot of people are in marriages where one is a believer and one's not.
I understand those dynamics definitely exist for many reasons.
I'm just here to speak on what I was looking for after my conversion, which
was a relationship that was built on God, the true God, and not this like other God
that I've been idolizing for many years.
So I, I wasn't sure what to do.
I knew that I could talk to him about it, but I would have to be careful.
And how I did that.
And, I prayed a lot.
I prayed for him a lot during that time.
I also did start to change our relationship and what I was willing
to do and not willing to do.
I had to.
Tell him I would not marry him if he was an unbeliever.
That was not a fun conversation.
I had to tell him we were no longer going to be engaging in, some
premarital sex as we had been.
it was hard.
I had to like ladies.
Boundaries down because of God and I did them willingly.
I knew that it's what God wanted and it was what the scripture talks about.
And I knew that this was part of my sanctification and I had to trust God that
he knew what he was doing, in our lives.
And so I was like, no matter how this plays out, I have to be okay with it.
if Clay walks away, I have to be okay with it.
And I would pray to God.
eventually my prayers became less selfish and more sounding.
And I meant to more sounding God, I would rather clay be
a believer than stay with me.
I think it's more important for him to have an eternal life
with you, not separated from you than it is even be with me.
So even if he breaks up, I just want him to become a believer.
No matter what.
So I just started praying for that.
not, outside of our relationship, because I felt no matter how
this plays out, I really want that for him more than anything.
So I, we did start having conversations of course, regarding
Christianity, regarding, my faith and my conversion and his response
would often be, I already did that.
I'm never doing that again.
Meaning I'm never going to be a Christian again, referring to his Catholic.
Catholicism upbringing.
And I was like, Oh no.
But I'm like, he said never before, so I'm not going to let that be the end.
So I would keep pushing sometimes and I would push back really hard.
If he started to get theological with me, I would start, quoting what
little scripture I knew and, just telling him, look, This is the truth.
I wouldn't be here.
I wouldn't like lie to you.
I just think it's the truth.
I believe it.
And so we would have these, philosophical debates, have you, or theological debates.
And sometimes it would end up with me storming out of a restaurant and
crying on a bench outside because I was like, I don't know what else to say.
I don't know what else to do.
It would get really, it would get rough.
And, somehow we were still together after all that.
And, that's when he ended up
a trip to Colorado.
And we also had started from a friend's recommendation
watching the show The Chosen.
And, I wasn't sure what to think about it.
Like some Christians say you don't watch it.
Some Christians love it.
So I was like, at this point, I don't know if much can hurt our relationship.
I'm like, it's already pretty rocky.
So I'm like, let's see if he wants to watch it.
That we started watching that and I could see he was interested
in the characters and the story.
And I would, we would sit and watch the episodes.
I'm like, Oh, I know what's going to happen.
And he's like, how do you know what's going to happen?
I'm like, cause it's in the Bible.
So yeah, about that time he goes to Colorado.
So I'm like fully prepared for him to end our relationship and to walk away.
But at the same time, I can tell he really loves me and he wants to make it work.
So that's where we left off before his conversion.
It was really hard.
It was totally.
I've never done something so hard in a relationship as I did that.
So it sounds As much as you wanted to be with clay, you were willing to.
Just let him go.
If he wasn't going to be a believer.
It sounds like you were more.
Interested in seeing him gain eternal life in Christ and to.
Compromise to be with him.
That's true.
Love.
Clay: I knew God was reading my heart about this and that's how God
always, I think, works with us as he reads your heart and you really have
to get to a place where you don't.
for me, I often believe if my prayer is not being answered yet, it's because
my heart is not in the right place.
I'm not seeing things clearly as God would like me to see
them for my own sanctification.
Whether I'm praying for a financial breakthrough or a job breakthrough
or a relationship breakthrough, I'm like, okay, I have to start.
Something's not moving in this, in the direction I think it should move.
what, where's my heart at?
So I, I learned early on, like even just a baby Christian.
I was like, okay, my heart needs.
To really find the right place for him as a person who loves him.
So yeah, I totally did begin to pray God, I'm okay if, I know
you'll take care of me, but I really, I'm praying for his soul.
Like he, I want him to know you.
And I would tell God he would be a great Christian God.
And I'm like, look at all he's done in the new age.
Think of how much he would do for you.
And then I thought, look at.
I just thought of all the things he would do as a Christian as
a believer that would help God.
And so I just would start praying into that.
not that God needs us, but just knowing I just knew if he I even told my mom,
I said, and she's not a believer.
I said, mom, if he converted life, just think of what he would be
like, not wanting him to change his personality or anything.
Just thinking about, wow.
if he's so passionate about.
Mindfulness and Buddhism and Taoism and all these things.
Think how passionate he would be for the Lord.
So I would, keep that in mind too, of that feeling of he would be a
great, just a great man of God.
if he found the truth.
So I pray for that.
Jesse: Okay.
Clay, I interrupted you.
You were about to say something.
Go ahead.
Clay: Yeah, no, it's, so if you remember that the image that I ended with was, like
an animal that was struggling like a wet cat and fighting and you come up, come
across this animal and want to help it and it's just scratching and fighting and and.
that as an allegory for my relationship with God and just the theme of God drawing
me near to him and drawing me closer.
And so looking back, I believe that, the Bible tells us that God knows our heart.
And so I believe that God, he reaches out for people and he loves
all people, not just ones that are believers and that he loved me so
much that he put Casey in my life
and allowed me to fall in love with her before I was saved.
before I knew him and he knew, and so he knew it was like Casey was like the,
worm on the hook and, fishers of men.
and so I, I believe that this is how I look at.
look at my life and my relationship.
And so I think, it's just beyond us to understand exactly how big and awesome God
is and how and just how much he loves us.
So I think that part of the story is You know, I got hooked on Casey and then
slowly because I was so far from him and, sometimes with children,
you need to give them these.
incentives, and God, our God is a good dad.
He's really a good father.
And I think that's exactly how he treated me.
and Hey, just look at this for a second.
and then, so I don't know if that's, Maybe that cheapens the, but that's
just the, that's just the experience.
when like Casey went silent, for about a week or so, I just didn't
hear from her and I, I was like, I don't know what I did, but I'm
gonna, I'm just gonna hope it's okay.
And I think she told a little bit about what happened during that week for her.
But she
in that week found Christ and gave her life to Christ.
And then
she reemerged from that silence and, broke the news to me, and
it was really hard for her.
It was hard for her because she was so happy, but then she
had this burden of I think that
I guess one of the principles I really want to highlight in my story
was it's a little bit, the way I was saved is really fantastic and epic.
and praise God for that, because I think I like.
Again, I needed some God knew what he knew what I needed, and in, in general, I think
the Christian walk in the regeneration that happens when you accept Christ into
your life and the regenerative, spirit, and the, sanctification process and is
slow and it's gradual and it's internal, and so it was, it was very, epic.
And also it's been a lifetime for us, I'm 40 and Casey's 33 and that's, time of a
gradual process of coming to the Lord, and being marked and set apart for the Lord.
Now that we've actually given our lives to Christ.
and surrendered our lives to him.
And there is, it's not a mechanistic growth.
It's a slow, gradual growth, like a flower, or botanical growth, like you
see a plant or a tree and it's alive.
But you can't see it growing.
Jesse: Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
Clay: don't see it, you don't see it growing, but you know that
it's alive and you, and that's how it feels to have Christ now.
and so I just wanted to, I just wanted to say that too, that for
other people, for every person that has a story like mine, which is You
know, exciting this rapid growth.
I want to say this before I talk about this rapid thing that God did
in our life, that for every one of those stories, there's 20 stories of
people who are waiting on the Lord, who nothing is happening, who they're
having hardship after hardship, and just.
on their knees and just not knowing, like not seeing it, not feeling it.
And that's okay.
God is bigger than a feeling and he's bigger than a rapid,
like it happened like that.
This, what I'm about to describe, it happened like this for us, but
now we're in a different season.
and it doesn't always happen like that.
Sometimes it's a lifetime.
Of, and for us it was too, it just culminated in us getting saved in this
way and dovetailing together and get all these gifts that you're now I'm now
in front of you here doing this podcast with a wife and child, it's beyond my
mind to understand how did that happen so quickly and that, but that it's slow
Jesse: Yeah.
Clay: it's gradual and that it, everybody's story is different.
So people out there, if they're listening, don't.
Be discouraged if your story is slower or different or, it's just
beautiful, whatever, wherever you're at in your relationship or your
journey into believing and just turning to the Lord, because what,
that's what happened for me was.
Casey came back and broke the news to me.
And initially I was like, okay, this should, hopefully this will wear off soon
and we can get back to what we were doing.
and then in my heart, I could know, I knew because she had this piece.
over her.
And it was, I couldn't believe it because she had literally
given up her life.
for the listeners out there to understand, like we were like going to
events and doing psychic And we were so involved in, yeah, we, it was, you
can't get more, like more, you can't drink the Kool Aid more than we drank.
we were.
If I could, people that know me and my parents could attest to this is seeing
my room and the things I had on my walls.
And it was shocking.
It's shocking looking back.
All of a sudden Casey gave all that up pretty much her whole life
and identity in a week's time.
I couldn't understand why she was happy.
And peaceful.
And, she says that she was firm and what she was firm on what she believed.
And that's totally different person because she was peaceful.
There wasn't all this, something happened to her and I could see it.
And God laid everything out in a way where if it was anybody but
her, I would have walked away.
But because I already loved her and God allowed us to be together, even if even
we were taking it upon ourselves to do simple things that aren't ordained by God.
but in the larger scheme, like we were able to meet each other and.
And so in a sense, I was hooked and I was curious enough because I loved her.
I was curious enough about what was going on.
And I knew I had this understanding of her life because we were so close
and before she was saved, like, all we would talk about was this unquote,
spirituality, and all these things, like we would just do this stuff together.
And so I had this deep, intimate relationship with her, which
involved this deep spirituality.
And all of a sudden that spirituality was gone and Christ was there.
And as an outsider, that's a different experience.
Christ is a different experience than any other thing.
It's not a brick wall.
it's.
If you want him, if you want to see him and open your heart, if you're open, if
there's something there for you to find.
And so what I saw in Casey, although it was in, I felt my flesh at the time
felt hurt and dejected and defensive.
underneath that, my heart was curious.
what happened to this woman in a week?
What's in that book?
And so even though my mouth was saying to her, like, how could you believe that?
My heart was curious and trying to make sense of it.
if you go back and listen to my episode, you'll understand that about me is I was
trying to fit it into my understanding of.
even if we weren't going to be able to work out, I wanted to know why I wanted
to know what is it that happened to her.
And like I said, she was different.
She just had a confidence and a peace and a love that I could tell that her
love surpassed this material world.
Like this material relationship we had in this physical, ourselves,
like that there was a love that she had for me that went beyond this
relationship that we had built.
And I was mad.
I was mad because I didn't feel that.
So I think deep inside us, like you mentioned in the beginning, it's
like this yearning for God and, Jesus is God and there is only one God.
And so ultimately our heart yearns for him.
But there's all this stuff in the way.
And that's what it was.
And it was just hard.
And so we went, we were fighting, arguing.
And so in the 3D world, I we were both like Casey had surrendered the
relationship and was just praying.
Like when she said she prayed for me.
she prayed probably no one has ever prayed for me.
To be say it to be saved and stuff.
And she just said, I know you don't like this.
I know that you don't believe in this.
Would you just watch this show with me?
And I'm thinking, okay, sure.
Why not?
if this is the end of our relationship and this woman that loved me and I
loved her, if this is going to be the end, like I might as well just
end good, I might as well not be like a complete, bitter person, and
watching that show, it gave the chosen.
Yeah.
It gave me a mental picture of
Christ and his life.
So I highly recommend that show to anybody.
Not sure it's just check it out because it made me think and the
guy that plays Jesus is really good.
And, so it's somehow I'm a very image based person.
So it somehow just was like, okay, that's what everyone's talking about.
that's what it must.
That's what he must be like, because.
Sometimes it doesn't translate from words on a page to, to, like an image for me.
so that was like set the, like in a way till the soil a little bit,
but it, it didn't go all the way.
it just satiated my curiosity in a sense.
And then, like I said, I left, and then I left for Colorado and got on that
plane, and Casey and I had a conversation beforehand, and I fully expected that
our relationship would end, because I knew it couldn't continue, and I
didn't believe, and I'm not the kind of person that can pretend to believe.
I'm just, I'm not that guy.
Like I'm, I thought about that.
I was like, I could do that.
And I was like, no, I can't.
I'm not, I'm just not, I'm not that person.
I can't do that.
you can't do it for somebody else either.
Like you're not the kind of person to just bend your will and just
be like, Oh, I'll do it for you.
Don't do that.
Yeah, anything.
No, but this is what I mean about.
I'm just trying to tie this back to the beginning is the
way that everything unfolded.
God, what happened with Casey?
Let's just say that it made me want to believe
And that's why I believe that God allowed everything to happen the way
he did because he loves me and he wants to bring me into his flock.
And it was only through this unique circumstances with this woman that I
would ever even want to believe I wanted.
so that's where it left me is I got on a plane ready for everything to
go and you can go back and listen to my episode, but there was a spark of
there of wanting to but not believing.
And to me, that's a nil.
it's like a fraction.
It just cancels out.
It doesn't you get to zero if you know And i'll say this for the people
listening that if you're in that place right now It's not a zero.
It's a big deal that you want to believe is everything and don't be afraid or
scared or upset with yourself that you're not there yet because that's
the seed of life And that's where I was
And then if you want to listen to my episode, you'll hear what happened
to actually cause me to surrender and bend my knee and surrender my life
to Christ in my trip to Colorado.
So all that, so that happened
and I had that experience, which only God can provide to move my
heart and reveal himself to me.
But what happened at the same time was I just turned to him.
So I wanted to believe, but there was no activation.
And then I had this experience in Colorado where I actually had
an activation and asked the Lord.
I took the leap of not knowing him and not while not believing.
I took the leap to.
Talk to something and someone and believe in on someone that I didn't know and there
he Was and i'll never Be able to thank him enough in all the ways that everything
happened like that and then after that, like I, in my episode, I shared, but it
just happened right away that all of a sudden, through mysterious circumstances,
I was able to graduate my program.
And I knew in that moment, when I surrendered to Christ, I also
surrendered to the love and the plan that He has for us.
And I knew, and in that moment, I knew I was gonna, I was gonna marry Casey.
That was my first priority and what's funny about this for everyone listening
is I did not believe in marriage
Before I got on the plane to go to Colorado, I had no interest
in marriage or kids or anything
I was just trying to have fun and feel good and Enlighten myself
right was this a new age mo, right?
it's all you it's all what you want to do for you
Jesse: So
Clay: Underneath it, all the, whatever the talk they're talking is, that's what
it's about and that's what it leads to.
So that's what I was about.
And all of a sudden I had this burning desire to get married.
Jesse: let me just go, just for clarity, so when you went to, Colorado, y'all
were having this issue, this major issue in your relationship, Casey was,
Saying that she really couldn't be with you if you weren't a believer,
but she couldn't force you or make you a believer, so it was up to you.
You had to do something.
what I'm hearing you say is that you really weren't wanting to be a Christian
so that you could be with Casey.
You just, you really wanted the truth.
and that's what you were seeking, and then after this experience with Jesus,
it's like he infused you with this desire, these, this new desire to actually, leave
your old life and do the right thing and get married and, it's not like you were
orchestrating all this in your mind.
It just came to you as a result of this experience.
Am I right?
Clay: and in a larger sense, Casey, you can tell me what you think, but we both,
what I, what looking back is we both had to surrender each other because we
had placed each other in the, in this, in a way and spot where God goes Casey.
found God and that knocked me out of the spot where I used to be and
I was And basically throughout, throughout the time I had surrendered
to, by the time I got on the plane, I had surrendered the relationship.
Cause you were ready for it to, you were like prepared mentally for it to end.
Yeah.
you had come to some kind of term that I had come to term of.
This relationship is not going to continue
like it is.
Yeah, there was no way it could have continued as it was that last month.
Cause it was just miserable and I was sad.
And I was like, I really love this woman, but I had to, it didn't work out
and so I had let go and surrendered the relationship and the difference at that
time was Casey had Christ in that place where he belongs top, and I had nothing.
And I was wanting and yearning.
and so I knew, I thought the relate, I knew the relationship was done,
but then I still want, I still didn't know what to do with that hole.
Jesse: yeah.
Clay: and then God, by his grace and mercy, gave me that opportunity,
surrendered to him and I did.
And my heart, it was like really clear about the image of a heart
of stone to a heart of flesh,
believe that's the journey I'm on now with Christ.
That's going to last the rest of my life and turning into a heart of flesh,
learning how to really love and be loved.
but yeah.
So then, so yes, you're right.
and then all of a sudden the ho the Holy Spirit just moved in me
and I had this burning desire.
I wa it was a ha I was happier than I've ever been because if you listen
to my episode, you'll know that I've been like how Patrick was and if few
episodes back, seeking my whole life
Jesse: Yeah.
Clay: and to finally have found.
I really wasn't a new per, felt like a new person.
and I knew I was like, I'm going to marry Casey.
And I, we, I went back
and I proposed to her at my graduation party a week later, I like literally
went back, got a ring, proposed to her.
And I was like, we're getting married.
And it was like, you did tell me though, that you were, you believed.
Because otherwise I wouldn't have said yes.
yeah.
I told her about, I told her about, I told her that I accepted Christ
and I think that was probably one of the happiest moments of our life.
And,
Jesse: tell me about that.
How did that come about?
How did you tell them?
Clay: it's a blur.
I just, it was like, it's like being on a roller coaster
or something when it's over.
It's yeah, go ahead.
so when he was in Colorado, he was texting me and we were talking
on the phone when we could.
Between his classes and stuff.
And he was telling me things about what work he was doing.
and he did tell me about the songs I had sent him, the Christian songs I had
sent him and how much they touched him.
and he, did you tell me about the vision you had with Jesus or did you wait?
all happened.
It really all happened so fast.
Like I accepted Christ.
That same day, miraculously, I was allowed to graduate.
And I was like, Conversations were very interesting.
I was trying to piece together what was going on, but all I could say is
all I knew is God was working in his life and I could see it very clearly.
I was like, okay, God's really moving.
In his life right now.
And I just have to sit, wait patiently, don't interfere with it.
Just let him go through at that point.
I was like, I'm not going to continue arguing with him about theological
things, really over this trip.
I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna wait patiently and, see what happens.
And so during that trip, it was interesting.
He was doing this presentation, I remember, and he was like, Finding out
all these crazy things about his college.
He was going to, that he was graduating from this college in
Colorado and it's a Buddhist college.
And he was finding out how the original founders were really not very good
people, even though they were like monks in the Buddhism tradition or whatever.
And so he was finding out all these weird things.
And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, of course, because like, when you're living apart
from God, but you think you are God, you're going to do some crazy stuff,
like So it's just a matter of I really think of the scripture that where
God says you can tell, somewhat about someone by the fruit, by their fruit
and what does their fruit look like?
And sometimes you can really see that, even though there's
amazing, they look amazing, like churches, but they're really cults.
If you look at the founder, you can see how their life was like destroyed.
how they were terrible.
A lot of them were not very good people.
And so of course the same was true of his college.
He's I can't believe this.
And he's starting to tell his classmates about it.
And I'm thinking that's interesting.
Like he was so gung ho about, this program and stuff.
And now he's starting to see it in a different perspective.
And, I just, I could tell I was like, okay, God's really.
Opening his eyes to things in a way that speaks to him, not
just, it's very personal to Clay
and, things that kept happening.
Like his friend was supportive of him, being curious about Christianity
and his friend wasn't a Christian.
He was staying with him over that trip and they would have these conversations and
I could tell God was using these people in his life, the situations in his life.
He, God even used his cat dying.
To help him be in this place where he was so in a way broken that it cracked
him open, so it's like God will break you down, but in order to build you up
in the way that he knows that you can be,
he built, he made you to be.
Yeah.
and the thing, thanks baby.
the thing that happened, is there's still work to do.
And when you're saved, so that all that is to say is it was very, I
was like in shock, I was happy.
And then also God reveals himself to me.
The real living, true God of the universe revealed himself to me.
It's like an earthquake
in your life.
it's like in the Bible when they can't, you can't see, they can't
look at them, and they're confused.
I imagine You know during the transfiguration or other times where
God revealed himself to Moses and other prophets that They were confused and
scared and excited and didn't really know what they saw, but they knew it was God
and then your God reveals this new truth his truth that he's real and everything
about everything changes and it's it's It's strange because it's almost like
this new life that's opened up, but it was right in front of you the whole time.
And so it's almost like you're living in the same circumstance,
but this new life opened up.
So all that has to say is when I think about the actual moments of
these things, It's like this podcast.
I'm not thinking about what I'm saying.
I feel like the whole, we pray before this and the Holy Spirit guides us, in a way.
and that's what happened.
And I, so I don't think you told me about Jesus until a while later.
I had to make sense of it all.
yeah.
Like I had to process it all.
So I think at that point I was just like, what I'm graduating.
Yeah, like it was like, okay, I was like, I'm going to get married.
Like I knew in my mind, the ring, everything was so clear to me.
And you don't go from not ever want, not wanting to get married at all.
And thinking marriage is a sham to being obsessed with a specific ring type.
Like I knew exactly I knew the actual like typology of the way the ring was
going to be and what it meant and exactly what it looked like and where to get it.
And all that stuff just was going on and I was just doing it and then
at my grad and then so I did that and I got home and I got the ring.
I don't think I don't know what I said much to anybody.
yeah, you didn't really talk much about your conversion.
Exactly.
At that point.
Because it was so like.
It was all still, it was happening.
I think it was all part of the same thing.
And that's why I wanted to say this.
You were like telling me, I'm not ready to talk about it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's driving me nuts.
I was like, I want to know what happened.
Jesse: Yeah.
Clay: was like, I want to know what happened, but I know he's processing it.
Everybody was like, Whoa, I don't know what's going on with Clay, but
I think it's good because everyone's been so used to me and if you go
back and listen to my episode.
You can tell why people just, they don't, you go through so many ups and downs and
explosions in your life and crash land after a while, people are just like,
Jesse: What's next?
Clay: yeah, they just keep their distance.
And I think people, it was like that.
and I also people I was used to coming out and telling these people all these.
proliferation of like ideas and just flooding people with that.
And then it all crumbling.
So I think I just kept it all close to my heart and also in a way when I think
when God moves us, what I remember feeling is like, it's this dual kind of feeling.
you're so in your life.
Everything you're living, so you're living, you're so alive, but you
also feel like you're being led, like you're not really, you're not really
the making the decisions in a sense.
It's like a flow state.
If you want to use secular terminology, like it's like a flow state.
Jesse: one thing that came to mind as you were talking about this
dear, about your experiences that the psalm, I think it's Psalm 46 1.
It says, be still and know that I am God.
Clay: Yeah, I
Jesse: I think in my old life, I would have thought, okay,
that means I got to be still.
I got to sit still and then he'll reveal himself to me.
But I have a new understanding.
And then what you just said just brought it to mind is that God is
Knowable, he wants to be known.
He wants us to know him more than even we want to know him.
And he created us to be, to know him and to be in relationship with him.
so he's always drawing us, but it's our busy ness in our own heads.
It's ours trying to figure it out.
that is our block.
And when he says, be still, to me, it means shut up, quit, stop.
Clay: think some people interpret it to me.
Surrender fighting, not just necessarily be still like actually
physically still, like you said,
but it's actually stop resisting fighting God.
Jesse: Yeah.
Yeah.
Clay put himself in a position to be, to be so receptive, to let go of his own
understanding, so to speak, so that he could break through and, yeah, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to.
Clay: It's a great segue because what that kind of does like segues into the
theme of the rest of our life is that.
What I see now sitting here today with my wife and my baby right
here, is that what God wants for me.
Is so much better than what I would strive and want for
and once I surrendered to him,
it's just now it's just this journey of trust, trusting in him and giving
myself over to his will, because that's what I, that, that's what happened.
And so everything happened really fast.
I was like, we're getting married.
I had a ring.
I proposed at my graduation party and I was like, we're
not, we're getting married.
She was like, Oh, okay.
what, a year.
And I was like, next week, I wasn't, we're not wasting any time.
Like we're getting married right now.
So I w we were engaged,
happiest day of my life.
And Casey said yes.
And then a week or two later, we were married and graduation
party was May 21st of 2023.
And then our wedding was June 16th of 2023.
we got married at the courthouse and then we, we moved in together officially
in our new place on July 1st, 2023.
And then it was just like thing out.
It was like thing after thing.
It was like, and again, for all the listeners, it's like,
whatever season you're in, it doesn't always happen like this.
And it was, I just, it was a life, it was a lifetime.
It was like a, it was a 40 years of slog and it was 40
years of slow, gradual change.
And I know now that God was with me through all that every time.
Jesse: reminds me of the Israelites, and we're roaming
through the desert for 40 years.
it takes 40 years for breakthrough sometimes.
Clay: but just that, so what happened after that was just like, it was like
boot stuff that I had wanted my whole life had written off as never, I had
written a long ago off that it was never for me, so having my own place.
I've been at that point, I've been homeless.
I had lived all over the world.
I've lived out of a backpack.
I've lived out of a car, a tent, different places in the sailboat.
And then I many times live ended up crash landing back at my parents.
And was still living at my parents house when I proposed and all
this happened like I had nothing I just want to stress that like
prior to me getting saved.
I had lost everything I mean I had nothing and then all of a sudden
this beautiful woman She said yes to me, but most importantly I had
god finally I had the real one true living god and I did not ever know how
to get to him until I had jesus You
And through Jesus, I found God and now have the Trinity.
And then, so we got married, we moved in, this all happened in
two months, we moved in together.
And then I got a new job out of nowhere.
I thought I would never, if you go back and listen to my story, you'll
hear that I got fired for doing new age practices in my internship, astrology
stuff, the thalascopes or whatever, terascopes, or what are they called, baby?
Horoscopes.
I, but anyway, I, all of a sudden
Casey was like, Hey, check this place out.
I was looking at therapy places around where we moved in our
apartment and it looks really good.
It looked like a great place to work.
And I just applied.
And then a week later I had a job with this.
Brand new private practice.
and, so within a month I was, we were married, I was married.
I had a little apartment dog and then, a wife and I had a brand new job.
but all this stuff was like tangible stuff.
It wasn't like stuff like it was stuff that I've always wanted, but I
wasn't thinking about it like that.
I was more just happy that I had the Lord.
But one, one, one thing I was going to share is that when I got back from
Colorado during that point in time where I hadn't really experienced I, I came back
to a life that was built in the new age, a room that was full of crap and altars.
And so Casey and I are very different.
She's very more, much more willpower.
I'm more like resistant to change and stubborn.
And I looked around my room and I was like, even though I
had found the Lord, I still.
And I had given my life to him and I was being guided by him.
I still had this other, fight, this flesh going on where I was
like, I like this, or I like that.
It was really hard because I had, like Casey mentioned, I meant I spent thousands
of dollars on all kinds of stuff and I literally had to dismantle like God,
God gives us a spiritual, but we have to do stuff in the physical realm.
It's not just like a set it and forget it.
Oh, I got, I think a lot of people that don't are, haven't accepted Christ.
They hear these stories and they think it's like, Oh, it's done.
Like you're just good.
And then you go to, it's there was things I had to do.
Jesse: It's a process.
Clay: Yeah.
And so I got home and I had to dismantle all of that.
So over the course of two or three days, I would take loads of stuff to the trash.
Out of my room, take pictures off the wall
and it was painful.
it was, it's not like you lose your pain or you don't have a struggle,
and I was just doing it anyway.
I was going into that painful areas of just dismantling all
that stuff that I used to believe.
Oh yeah.
And so then I had over the course of two days, I like had cleared out my room
and my parents were like, Oh, finally.
Thank God.
thank God, whatever's going on for you is good.
we're behind it.
cause they had been telling me like, Hey, this is whatever you're
doing, like this needs to stop.
But I finally came down and I had one item left and I was constantly in this
thing cause I had all this expensive stuff and I was like, Oh, I'll just give it to
people But then I was like, wait a minute.
No.
Now that I know God, I would not want to give this to anybody.
I don't want, I don't want anybody to have this because once you
have Christ, that's all you need.
Jesse: yeah.
Clay: And I was like, I don't want anybody to have this stuff because
it's going to not lead them to Christ.
So I have to throw it away.
so I got all the way down and I had this huge Buddha, was the last thing left.
And it was beautiful.
beautifully made, I had You lived in Asia.
Was it from?
it was, I actually got it in Colorado when I was out there, but
it was, I don't know how big, like a foot, foot, a high foot wide.
and it was beautifully made out of I don't know, silver.
It was nice.
And I was like, Oh, this will be good next to the toilet.
And so I put it, I was like, I put it there and I was like, and no offense,
if anybody's listening and you're in, and that's your, believe I'm not,
it's okay, I'm not trying to down you.
I just telling my story and I was like, Oh, maybe it'll be good.
And I was like, I don't want to see it.
I just don't believe in it, anymore.
and then I was like, maybe it'd be good out in the garden.
and it just got it was like.
Basically no, this is not good anywhere, but I didn't want to throw it away.
So I said, you know what, I'm going to say goodbye to Buddha with love.
I'm going to take it to the ocean.
And throw it in there where it came from and give it back to the ocean.
It came from the ocean.
It'll go back there.
So I bring this big,
beautiful Buddha thing down in my arms, down to the, Peter's point, beach.
And it's the last, it's literally the last piece of new age
paraphernalia, or that I had.
So it was a big moment.
it was like the, it was like the third day, and it was the last piece of things.
and I could just finally say goodbye to that life with love, And
so I, people were looking at me.
I was crazy.
I walked out into the ocean with this Buddha thing over my head.
I walked out as far as I, I don't know if that was like, there might
call the cops on me or something.
I think, but I didn't care.
I didn't care as I walked out to my, almost to my neck.
And I just said, back to the ocean where you came from.
I, I don't believe in you.
And I, thank you for all that, what you did, but you're no longer.
Part of my life and I just tossed it in the ocean and I went, I just felt
this weight, obviously wait, leave God, went back to the shore and just
got on my knees and said, thank you, God, thank you for clearing up my life.
Thank you for giving me the peace of your truth.
And I just felt light and, grateful.
And I walked back to my house.
And in my front yard, my neighbor is standing in the yard, my neighbor who is
like grumpy and doesn't, he's like feuds with my dad and like they're not friends
and we're not like friends and he doesn't talk to anybody and he's standing in my
front yard with a painting of a cross.
And he says, I want you to have this.
I heard that you, I heard that you graduated and, I could show you
it's on our wall right now, but it's his wife is a painter and.
For whatever reason, they heard that I graduated, and she selected this painting
she did, of a cross, and it has a part of a hymn on it, and it says, On a hill,
far away, stood an old rugged cross.
Crosses in gold.
And this is my neighbor that we were just fighting over, like, Where's the
aeration line is to the, to, and now he's literally after I just threw the
Buddha away, he's standing in my yard with this cross painting and the cross
is gold and it has that hymn on it.
And he's I want you to have this.
And I was like, yeah, and he had no idea.
he didn't know I got, I converted, he had no idea about that.
And he was like, I don't know why my wife wanted me to give this to you.
And we tried to tell him like a week later, like he was standing outside
and we, and he, after Clay told me this story, cause he was like in
tears when he called me and telling me this story and we went to thank them.
a week later or so, and they were outside, both of them were outside gardening,
his wife who painted the painting and then him and Clay's thank you.
I don't think you knew this.
And then all of a sudden the conversation gets interrupted and they start talking
about something completely different.
And I'm like, Clay, I just don't even think they know what they did.
Jesse: God sent it to you.
Clay: Yeah, so it was just one of those things.
They'll never know likely what that meant to him, it's, it was
like the timing and everything.
It was like, just again, it doesn't always happen like this, but
God was just revealing himself.
now I get the place of your life.
Now that you've taken all that stuff and thrown it away.
And you took that activation in the physical world.
I'm going to reveal myself to you here in the physical world and just, like
you just, it was just powerful.
and I guess
I don't know where we're at with time, but basically, I believe now
and you can hear my little daughter, Emerson rose in the background.
She's about two and a half months old, greatest gift God ever gave me.
And So once Casey and I got right with the Lord and he was in that place,
we've just, we've just got, and we got all that, like all those revealings
and all those gifts, and all those prayers answered, we just try to keep
him in that top place and love him more than we love, don't let, don't forget.
That's why this is such a great opportunity to come on this podcast
is to not forget what he did for us and that everything in our
life flows from our love for him.
And when things get hard and when marriage gets hard and it does
and, pressures from life, like to just remember what he did for us.
And it continues to do
and
it just blows us away and the way that we're, helping to sanctify each
other, and we're encouraged Casey and basically the greatest gift I could
ever wish for anybody is to have got Christ and be able to worship Christ
with the woman you love and these fruits that we've been able to and
neither of us know anything about this.
We're just, trying to be led by our church, by our pastor, and we go
to Legacy Church, which is a really great church with a great pastor.
and we're just trying to follow the guidance and fellowship
and follow the scripture and look to the scripture for help.
Because of what the Lord delivered us from, Casey and I are just really careful
about just maintaining our home and trying to stay close to the Lord and just catch
ourselves if we find ourselves putting anything else above him, whether it's each
other or our daughter or school or life or money, because we know he can do anything.
If he could save us in this way and have this dramatic change, and I could sit here
today and talk about the joy of marriage, it's a miracle, but this one scripture
I had for today, and I want Casey to have a chance to talk and any questions,
this is from Genesis, Genesis, 2, 18.
Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.
I will make him a helper fit for him.
Now out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every
bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.
And whatever the man called every living creature, that was his name.
The man gives names to all livestock and the birds and the heavens
and the beasts of the field.
But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.
And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a
woman and brought her to the man.
Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.
Therefore man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his
wife and they shall become one flesh.
And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.
So that I just Wanted to tie it to scripture that what I'm experiencing is
a promise of God and he wants good things for us and he's really made that clear.
and it's really, it's worth worshiping and glorifying and just bowing down because
What he wants for us is what he has for us in store, even if we feel
like we don't want it at the time,
it's incredible and it's real and it's deep.
without getting too much lost in my own thoughts, I want to
just turn it over to Casey and
give her a chance to,
Jesse: Yeah.
We, go ahead.
Casey, I want to hear, what you've been thinking as you've
been listening to Clay talk.
Clay: Yeah, I feel like it's, it's amazing watching his transformation.
becoming a Christian and him coming to church with me and wanting a child.
And, before, when I was in my other marriage, I couldn't imagine having
a child because I always felt like I can't take care of the husband
at the time that I had and a child.
And so it was a miracle to me to want to have a family because I always felt
like it would be too much, but I didn't feel like it's too much with God.
Yeah.
And we prayed and trusted and we have a beautiful little girl now.
And she was, I went into labor for her the, a year from when we were engaged.
Exactly.
we were engaged May 21st, 2023.
I went into labor with her May 21st, 2024.
She was born May 22nd, 2024.
So it's just a miracle, like how God works, in a year and one day.
We went from, not even being married to having a little girl and being
married and having a family way.
God wants us to be obsessed and, yeah, she's just perfect.
the whole, her whole story is amazing to me because, the day after we
found out, we were expecting her, I got a text from my ex husband.
Which he never texts me.
And he said, Hey, I found something of yours in the basement.
And I was like, what is it?
And he holds up my baby toy, a stuffed cow that I had when I was the baby.
And I was like, he's do you want me to ship it to you?
And I was like, yes.
And he had no idea.
I, we hadn't told anybody that I was pregnant.
And so just an amazing, I knew it was God, God's like this baby's yours.
Like I'm giving you this baby.
And Yeah, she has a little cow theme nursery now.
And, it's so sweet to see like God's promises fulfilled, And yeah, when she was
born, I had prayed, I got, I want a quick.
I don't want to be, in there for 24 hours induced, like they were saying
I might have to be and all this stuff.
and God really, he showed up for us in that moment in those moments.
And, it was the funniest thing that during the, during the, during while I
was in labor in the hospital, all the nurses, they kept walking into the room.
They'd say, Hey, It smells amazing here.
Why does it smell so good?
And I'm like, I haven't showered in a week.
No.
We weren't I hadn't showered.
He hadn't showered recent like that day.
And then he we didn't have we wash our clothes and hypo
allergenic, scent free stuff.
Because the baby you don't want to have a lot of Fragrance.
I didn't have any perfume on because I knew it wasn't good to have fragrance
on you when you're, having a baby.
I didn't, no candles, no aromatherapy, I had nothing.
And I'm like, I have no idea.
And, it was like, not just one nurse, it was like four.
It was over the top.
every person that came in the delivery room was like, what does that smell?
It smells so good.
it smells, and I'm like, and I had no idea what they were talking about.
And even, the three days later.
They would say, oh yeah, like I would pass you in the hallway and I
would just say, oh you smell so good.
They would call us like the good smelling couple.
It's really weird.
We just kept hearing in my heart, it's, a pleasing aroma to God,
Jesse: Yeah.
Clay: God is a pleasing aroma.
And he, that's how he showed up for us.
it was just like a way for him, I think, to just say to us, Hey, I'm
here and people know I'm here too.
they didn't know it was him, but they knew something was there.
And they thought it was us, but we knew better.
It was not us.
And just those miraculous kinds of little winks from God, it's like, Hey, I'm here.
I'm showing up for you.
And don't be afraid.
don't be afraid.
And it was scary after she was born.
it she needed to be on oxygen.
She was in the nursery like her vitals were being monitored every second.
I couldn't hold her right away.
Gary, she had some difficulty with breathing.
And so she had to be rushed off to the nursery to make sure she would be okay.
And, but I clay just felt very like confident God was looking out for us.
And she was fine after a little while.
So that's just to say God still shows up for us today.
And I know that he's, with us as a family.
Yeah.
Every time I see my wife, I know God loves me because he gave me her
and life can be really challenging.
It's this
regenerative process, that's happening for both of us.
And, it's just great.
we've got friends that are believers and, God's just populated our lives
with a lot of people to help us.
Bible studies and small groups and even this podcast to come
on here and be able to remember.
It's crazy how fast we forget what God's done for us and we move on to
the next thing and the next thing.
so we're really grateful.
to tell our story individually and together and really
want to thank you for this.
Jesse: I want to thank you because it's been such a great experience
hearing your story, both of you, and then there's a couple.
And, yeah, the God throughout the Bible, he would tell his people to,
build, These Ebenezers, these markers or monuments to, to remind them of what he
had done for them and that so that when their children asked, why is this here?
they could teach their children what God had done for them.
Cause we get, as human beings, we get busy, we get distracted.
We get, obsessed with things and we can't easily forget even the greatest things
that happen and, we can become ungrateful.
So telling our stories and sharing with other people is not just a way to,
edify other people, but it also edifies us because it draws us closer as we
remember all the good he's done for us.
So I really appreciate y'all taking the time to do this and being so
forthright and open and honest and, vulnerable to, to share your deepest
heart and it really means a lot to me and I'm sure everybody who hears it.
The Holy Spirit's going to use it, I believe.
Clay: me too.
Thank you.
And God bless you.
and, just want to say one final prayer, just over anyone listening
and over anyone that is married or unmarried and struggling to find love.
I pray that you find God first And pray that God, will help you draw you and.
Just want to really pray a prayer over anyone who feels alone
to know that God is with you.
He really is.
And if you're anywhere on the spectrum of, believing in him or not
believing in him, just know it's okay.
And he loves you and he's drawing you.
And I pray that all the different testimonies on this podcast, be heard
by the people that need to hear them.
And I know they will.
And just pray for, for all the things that God is doing and for his whole
church and for the whole world.
in Jesus name.
Amen.
Jesse: thank you, Clay.
Any final words, Casey?
Clay: No, just thank you.
And, we look forward to hearing more testimonies.
Jesse: All right.
thank you both.
And, I look forward to seeing Emmy grow up.
Clay: Yeah, us too.
Thank you, Jesse.
Have a great day.
Speaker 2: We hope you've been blessed by today's story.
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Speaking of sharing, if you know a Jesus follower with a story to tell, please send
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It may encourage them to tell their story.
That person may even be you.
Our only criteria is that Jesus be glorified.
Most Christians don't share their faith because they mistakenly think
their story is not interesting enough, or that it's self centered to talk
about themselves, or that they are not competent to explain the gospel correctly.
But none of that is relevant.
If Jesus has changed your life, you have a story to tell.
All of our stories are completely unique.
No one has a story like yours, and you may be the only one who can reach someone
else through telling your experience.
So don't be intimidated.
A story is just that, a true account of your own experience, and no one
can disagree with your experience.
When we tell what Jesus has done in our lives, we are being obedient to his
command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
It's not about theology, and it's not about how interesting or special you are.
It's all about Jesus.
So when you're ready to tell how Jesus has impacted your life, you can let Jesse
know at his ministry website, jesseduke.
net.
There you can download guidelines that will make it easy to
prepare to tell your story.
Thank you for listening today and Shalom.