Good morning!

Here is today's Texas Minute... including some thoughts on what happened at Gilgal.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, July 19, 2019
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• A new poll finds ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – is more popular with Americans than any of the Democrat “squad” of leftist women who have been attacking President Trump over immigration policy. U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley have been calling for the abolition of ICE, yet the Daily Caller reports the agency is far more popular with Americans than any of them.
      
• Texas officials do not verify voter applicants to ensure only eligible citizens are added to the registration rolls. Ross Kecseg reports Republican legislators have so far ignored the problem.
     
• A WFAA investigation concluded “hundreds, if not thousands of non-U.S. citizens, are registered to vote in Texas, and some have cast ballots in elections.”
         
• State Sens. Pat Fallon (R–Frisco) and Paul Bettencourt (R–Houston) both tried to address the issue by filing Senate Bill 482 and Senate Bill 1228, respectively. Fallon’s measure would have required voter applicants to show proof of citizenship, while Bettencourt’s would have required citizenship verification, but neither measure was given even a hearing in the State Affairs Committee chaired by State Sen. Joan Huffman (R–Houston).
      
• With the state lawmakers having passed legislation offering voters more control over skyrocketing property taxes, one Central Texas city council is attempting to cash in by bilking citizens ahead of the law’s effective date next year. Brandon Waltens reports Hutto residents could see a 33 percent increase in their city’s property tax rate, on top of rapidly rising appraisal values.
   
• Are your city officials scheming to play the same game on the backs of taxpayers? Are you sure? 
    
• State Sen. Bob Hall (R-Van) is continuing his commentary series looking at the loss of liberty through government overreach. The most recent involves the “extreme miscarriage of justice” that has occurred with the Texas Department of Child Protective Services removing a small child from his family based on the affidavit of a doctor who “had no history of treating the child, had never seen the child, never spoke with the parents, and did not even make a complete review of all of the child’s medical records.” 
       
• Conservatives have always known Planned Parenthood is primarily a for-profit, abortion advocacy group rather than a “women’s health” organization. Finally, as Rachel Bovard writes in a new commentary, they’re admitting it.

Friday Reflection

Along the Jordan River, almost to the Dead Sea, you find the plains of Jericho – the mound of the ancient city and its ruins are still visible.

But for today I don’t want to look at Jericho; we can discuss that place another time. (And those going on the 2020 Empower Texans trip to Israel will see it in person!) Instead, I invite you to look west from Jericho across the plains to the Jordan River and Gilgal. Not much to see out there.

First, a little background. You might recall the story of Moses and the Israelite slaves leaving Egypt. As the Egyptian army was approaching, the Israelites were pressed against the Red Sea with seemingly nowhere safe to go. Moses was instructed by God to raise his staff, and the sea parted for the people to pass – with the waters then drowning their foes.

After that amazing display of God’s power, the people of Israel stumbled – they were afraid to take the final step and enter the land promised to their forefather. As punishment for their faithlessness and timidity, they had to wander the desert as nomads for a generation.

Some forty years later the Israelites were finally allowed to enter their promised land. Yet this time the raging waters of the Jordan separated them from their potential adversaries – the closest of whom are behind the strong walls of Jericho, a city they could see from the swollen river banks.

At Gilgal the Israelites were told to do, in essence, the opposite of what they did fleeing Egypt. They were told God would turn the dangerous river into dry land so they could cross into the enemy’s stronghold... but this time they had to get their feet wet.

It’s one thing to have faith when we see the waters part, providing an easy path to safety. It’s something else to have faith when crossing a raging river in order to advance into the reach of a stronger, entrenched enemy.

So it was at Gilgal where the men carrying the Ark of the Covenant stepped into the raging waters... and God then dried up the river for the people to pass. Leaving the comfortable scarcity of the wilderness, they stepped out in faith toward the certain fight of claiming the long-promised land of Israel.

Do we have faith to leave our safe places and fight the fights ahead? Rather than flee to safety, do we have the faith to rush into the enemy’s grasp?

Just as at Gilgal, we must step forward in faith every day and confront our fears by trusting in God.