On The Run

William Walter Asher III has spent most of his on the run. In 1966, when Asher was 20 years old, he was convicted and sentenced to 7 years to life for his part in the robbery of a San Francisco bar during which a bartender was killed. He spent several years in prison before escaping from an inmate fire camp in El Dorado County in 1975. At that point, he began his career as a fugitive. Asher began using other names and worked as a truck driver. He married and raised a family. He managed to elude authorities for 36 years. Until last Friday, that is. Using a tip regarding a secret phone number and other phone records, the FBI eventually located Asher at a home in Salida, California and finally took him into custody.

Its hard to imagine being on the run for 36 years. Always looking over your shoulder. Always having to be careful about what you said and to whom you said it. Maybe it got easier as the years past by. Perhaps Asher eventually began to believe that he had really gotten away with it. Who knows? It is reported that Asher didn’t say too much during his arrest, although he did keep asking, “How did you find me?”

Life on the run is a difficult way to live. Sadly, there are those who spend their lives running from God. For whatever reason, they decide that trying to hide from God is better than facing Him. Perhaps they think that if they ignore God, He will just go away. Whatever the reasoning, let me remind the spiritual fugitives out there that you can’t run from God forever. “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). God knows where you live. He knows what you have done and He still wants to forgive you. Why not surrender to Him now before it is too late?

God loves you!
Mike