VOLUME I • ISSUE NO. 2
THE MAN WHO WALKED 250,000 MILES
We live our lives locked in a mechanical cage called a clock. We check our watches, obsess over business quarters, and blindly surrender our days to the Gregorian calendar, a rigid, man-made matrix engineered in 1582 to track taxes and secular schedules.
But Heaven operates on an entirely different clock. In the very beginning, the Creator stitched a living, breathing timekeeper right into the fabric of the universe. Genesis 1:14 lays it out plain and simple: "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years." God gave us these seasons for a reason: to snap us out of our spiritual time-blindness and hand us a prophetic map for our lives, our callings, and our businesses.
On the ancient Hebrew calendar, this season is known as Tammuz, also known as the season of the Eye Gate. This is a time for heat, testing and refining and when "giants" may enter your path through crises, setbacks, and sudden chaos, just to test what you’re actually looking at. Thousands of years ago, during Tammuz, ten tribal spies stared at the literal giants of Canaan and panicked. "We are like grasshoppers in their sight!" they cried. They let the terrifying illusions of their physical eyes abort their destiny, condemning an entire generation to wander in pointless, exhausting circles through the desert.
Yet history gives us a beautiful counter-narrative. In the early 1800s, a devout Christian pilgrim named James Holman looked at his own circumstances and flatly refused to spend his life wandering in those same meaningless circles.As a young British naval veteran, Holman was handed a golden parachute after contracting an auto immune disease. He was offered a lifetime military pension and a luxurious suite inside Windsor Castle. His only duty? Sit comfortably in a royal chapel twice a day. It was safe, effortless, and easy. To anyone else, it was the ultimate dream. But Holman recognized the comfort for what it truly was-a cage.
Placing his absolute trust in the Creator, he packed a single bag, grabbed a wooden walking stick, and stepped out onto the open road completely alone. He knew that even when the path ahead went pitch-black, his footsteps were being divinely GUIDED
The "experts" of his day publicly mocked him, screaming that his solo journey was absolute suicide. But Holman charged straight into the unknown with an unshakeable, magnetic grace. He crossed every imaginable cultural divide, charming royal European courts, bargaining in dusty Mediterranean bazaars, and embedding himself with indigenous tribes deep in uncharted jungles.His fearless spirit eventually triggered an international incident. While attempting to traverse the frozen wilderness of Siberia to circumnavigate the globe, the paranoid Russian government grew terrified of his uncanny navigation skills. Refusing to believe a lone traveler could conquer such harsh terrain, they arrested him under the suspicion of being a deep-cover British spy, throwing him into captivity before forcibly deporting him.But Holman never stopped. He ultimately gave an extraordinary gift to society, publishing massive, best-selling volumes of his travels that completely shattered cultural assumptions about human limitation. He became a living monument to a higher truth, proving to the world that we are called to walk by faith, not by sight.The Russian Empire and the critics of the world panicked because they couldn't comprehend how a lone man could bypass every giant, mountain, and roadblock in his path. They didn't understand that he had already mastered the secret of the Eye Gate;
James Holman conquered all 250,000 miles of this earth - the equivalent of circling the globe 10 times, without ever once looking at it, having been struck permanently and totally blind at the age of 25.
If you are facing towering giants in your life today, do not let your physical eyes paralyze you into wandering in circles. Stand up and walk with your physical feet to activate your spiritual eyes of faith.
If James Holman could walk 250,000 miles completely blind, you can take the next step.
Until next Tuesday, may your burdens be light and your blessings be double!
Michelle Driscoll
VISIT THE BEULAH SHOPPE™ FOR THE WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT™ GUIDED HOLMAN JOURNAL →
