The Story Behind ABiDE: A 19-Year Journey to Our First Design

If you look at the Never Too Lost store today, you’ll see the word ABiDE across our 45-Day Field Manuals, our journals, and our apparel. It is the cornerstone of what we do. But the story of how ABiDE became our very first design isn't a quick tale of business inspiration. It took 19 years, a failed company, and a complete shattering of what I thought I knew about God.

The Vision and the Failure

To understand where this started, you have to know where I started. I was a hate-filled atheist, an evolutionary apologist, and firmly anti-Christ. I hated the idea of God because of a lie I believed when I was very young: that He couldn't hear, didn't care, or simply didn't exist.

When I finally came to know and submit my life to the God I thought didn't exist, He showed me a vision. I saw an apparel company that reached out through the Holy Spirit to anyone who saw it—designs that were prayed over and carried His heart.

I immediately went to work. I started a cheesy Christian t-shirt company, imitating the big brands of the time. It failed in less than a month.

I cried out, blaming Him for the failure. His response was clear: I gave you a vision. I didn't tell you to go start a company.

I shelved the idea. For 19 years, I believed that the vision I saw wasn't meant for me to build.

The Sledgehammer

Nearly two decades later, I was at a conference and saw a Christian apparel company doing it right. Their designs weren't cheesy, and the guys running it were Spirit-filled and Spirit-led. I went up to them, thanked them for what they were doing, and shared my story about the vision I had 19 years ago.

One of the guys came around the table, looked at me, and said something that changed everything: "God doesn't give us a vision for someone else to fulfill it."

It hit me like a sledgehammer. It completely shattered the lie I had been carrying. The issue wasn't that I wasn't supposed to create the company; the issue was that I just wasn't supposed to do it 19 years earlier.

"You Have No Idea What That Word Means"

I went back to God and asked for permission. This time, He said yes.

I asked Him what He wanted me to design first. He gave me one word: ABIDE.

I immediately questioned Him. Did He really want my first shirt to just tell people to obey Him?

He told me I had no idea what that word meant and to go research it. He was inviting me to abide, and I didn't even realize it.

I dug into the research and came back to Him with three words that I thought sounded like great marketing: Sit. Dwell. Remain.

His response? "You missed it by that much."

With a bit of sass, I asked what it actually meant.

He replied: "If you sit, dwell, and remain, but you are not in My presence... then you are just wasting your time."

In His Presence

That was the missing piece. That is where In His Presence came from.

ABiDE isn't about blind obedience or just sitting still. It’s an active, intentional posture of remaining in the presence of God. If we are doing the work, building the business, or living our lives without being anchored in His presence, we are missing the point entirely.

That revelation became the first design for Now Found Apparel, and it remains the beating heart of Never Too Lost today. It’s why we created the 45-Day ABiDE Field Manual, the journals, and the gear. They are physical reminders to carry the heart posture of Jesus wherever you go.

Sit. Dwell. Remain. In His Presence.