Josh and I visit most weeks and talk about matters important to our walks with Christ Jesus. Periodically, he is going to write a blog post about our visits, and when he does, I want to share his thoughts with you. 

I'm here to report that I personally have fallen off the edge of the world. 

The judges of biblical times were not anything akin to the magistrates before whom we plead our traffic tickets. They were more like regional enforcers or old west gunslingers. 

There it was. The crisis was revealed, the mystery unfolded—a trio of failings that reduced Ashlie to sobs.

There was no one around but a male desk clerk sporting a ponytail. I’d heard the men were wearing those things out there, but I’d never seen one. A few of the hard-core Indians back home had long braids, but they were supposed to. This guy was my Dad’s age. 

Days pass and the decision-making deadline approaches. Whereas initially his intensity was fueled with frustration, now there is another factor. Fear. What am I going to do? I don’t want to miss God’s will, he thinks.

Only time could lay the proper groundwork to this point. Only now is he weaned from his methods, his ideas, his analysis, and his means learned and sophisticated to discover God’s will.

And time ticks on. Hours pass into days as he tries varied and sundry methods for prying God’s will loose. Prying? Probably not the best word, he ruminates. But it’s getting close to that, he confides to himself.

He can almost hear God saying, “Nope. Not today. Not going to do it. I know and have my plans for you, but that information is unavailable.”

But that’s as far as confession took me. In fact, once I admitted the problem it flared up with more intensity than ever.

I expected Him to be at churches around the world admiring all of the new clothes, but He met me on an asphalt street, in an unknown yard, with a four-legged emissary.

Trust is confidence in God even when it appears He isn’t worthy of my belief

I felt it best if He stayed on His side of the universe and I stayed on mine.

The problem is that the knowledge I know has not yet intersected with the project at hand.

As I stood and looked over the southwest side of Fort Worth, I asked Him what He considered to be the key to experiencing His promise that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

I figured He would be half tuned to me and half tuned to the great need around Him.  But He had all the time in the world. I didn’t understand, but neither did I think about it for long. 

That was silly of me. Concerned? Yes. But burdened? He wasn’t burdened at all by the weight He carried. Quite the contrary. It was as though the burdens cast upon Him were without significant weight. He conveyed the confidence that only God could have. 

By way of his charismatic personality, administrative prowess, and creative genius he has built an empire of great historical and worldwide influence founded under the title Hell, Inc. He now serves as the company’s President and Chairman with offices and viable concerns worldwide.

In many cases Christians today are no better off with the New Testament than they were without it in Jesus’ day. I mean, they may have it, but unless they know what’s in it they won’t derive any benefit from it. Many of them only know what they’ve been taught or heard. I love these folks. 

They become introspective and subject to self-condemnation, searching for the cause of their failure while expending great spiritual effort to deal with the hideous “self.” Never mind that their old self was dealt a fatal blow in Christ.