14 February 2026
Blurry, Busy Winter Months
Dear Friend,
In the walk of faith, sometimes the way forward is clear, and other times it’s blurry…1It’s been so long since our last newsletter that folks were beginning to wonder if we’re okay. Okay? Certainly, and blessed. But busy? Oy vey, yes! Although things are settling down a bit and coming into focus now, life has been somewhat of a blur since November’s newsletter. For instance:
- In December I spent a week back in our old stomping grounds of Chesapeake, VA, flying back to help with arrangements, and doing the memorial service of our friend and next-door neighbor of 30+ years. I visited other local friends with what time I had free.
- From Chesapeake, I brought back a “souvenir” flu that laid me low for an entire week. Normal energy levels didn’t return for another two weeks.
- We’ve been praying our way through a series of potentially difficult family “firsts without daddy” — our grandkids’ first Thanksgiving without their father, a grandson’s “first” birthday, Daddy’s first birthday remembrance, “first” Christmas, and even the first anniversary of our son-in-law’s death last month. Our widowed daughter and her kids are a chief reason behind our move here and an important ongoing focus of ministry.
- January brought responsibility for another memorial service locally, which involved a week of hands-on helping, leading up to the service itself.
- Circumstances opened doors for “subbing” in preaching and teaching opportunities, not to mention teaching a full day at the Bible school because I had “lost” a class session due to my illness in December.
The answer to over four years of praying now sits in our driveway.- January always brings with it a raft of administrative responsibilities regarding the end-of-year “business” of Finest of the Wheat.
- Let’s see… anything else? I mean, besides our recent 54th anniversary? Yes. What spare time we’ve had (precious little!) has been spent in looking for the “right” used car. More on our success in the praise report below!
I think we’re back in balance and on track for regular newsletters in 2026. Thanks for your patience!
Refocusing on Our Faith “Thread”
Let’s return our focus to our ongoing exploration of “real” faith (as opposed to “little” faith). We mentioned in our last newsletter that Jesus’ goal with His disciples was to wean them from the idea of “getting more faith,” instead challenging them with receiving God’s own faith implanted in them. Or, as we summed it up, Jesus’ words in Mark 11:22, usually translated as “Have faith in God” should be translated as “Have God’s faith.” As we saw previously, Jesus also calls that “mustard seed” faith.
May I share a personal story about when my “little faith” was exposed and humbled, and then replaced with divine “mustard seed” faith? Back in 1977 we had started a new church fellowship as the result of heart-breaking circumstances. But the Lord was encouraging us in the new work with singular and remarkable answers to prayer.
It was in the early weeks of this transition that a young man from the church (note: nearly all of us were young then!), asked us to come and pray for his girlfriend, someone who was new to us. I rang up two leaders in the church (Steve and Noël, as I recall) and asked them to join me. Based on what God had been doing, I was “full of faith” (so I thought), presuming that the Lord would instantly heal this young woman from an assumed flu bug, especially based on His recent track record.
“Little faith” seemed to make a big noise when it got sucked down the drain!2Well, you know what they say about “assume”! When we arrived to lay hands on her, it turned out that the prayer request was for healing from ovarian cancer. (It had been confirmed by x-ray.) Think for a minute: can you call to mind the sucking sound a drain makes as it seems to be pulling in the last of the water in a sink or tub? That’s precisely what I heard and felt with my faith on hearing what we were praying for. My assumptive “little faith” got sucked right down the spiritual drain. I had brought a keyring penknive to the gun fight, so to speak.
Flu or cancer — should it have made a difference to real, God-given faith? No. But I had entered the house full of my worked-up “little faith,” and it was exposed as such, beggared by the need. At least I had the good sense to do what we always should do when faced with such circumstances—I said, “Let’s wait on God.” So, rather than going immediately to prayer, waiting is what we did. Quietly. And, personally, at least, I waited with a very empty, humble, contrite heart.
And then, after about five minutes, God did something. He didn’t give a word to me, but rather a knowing. I knew that He was present and intended to heal this young woman. And with that knowing — call it a “gift of faith” or receiving a muscular mustard-seed measure of God’s faith—I called us together to lay hands on the sister. Just like Luke records, “the power of the Lord was present to heal” (Luke 5:17), and we knew it. And a week later, other tests and images were run, preparatory to surgery, from which it was discovered that the cancer was gone. No trace. No surgery. No explanation.
Well, no medical explanation, anyhow! Remember, we are considering God’s faith; so next month we’ll look at how such faith comes to us in the will of God.
Clear Focus on the 2026 Publication Path
Now that New Testament Holiness and Percy Gutteridge’s The Holy Spirit and His Emblems have been completed and published, these appear to be the paths forward in our writing ministry:
The paperback has been available for years. Now it’s time to get it online!- With all of what we publish and offer as ebooks and paperbacks, we have always made it a point to share everything for free on our website as well. There have been two exceptions to that rule, those being Isaiah Reid’s Boyhood Memories and Lessons and his delightfully inspirational Sunnyside Papers. Why the exceptions? Because of questions about copyrighted images the books contain. But not making those books freely available online has always bothered me. Solution? Start putting them up on the website without the copyrighted images. (Duh! Hey, it only took me 19 years to figure that out!) Watch for the first chapter of Boyhood Memories and Lessons this month. This will give us new website materials monthly while we wait for chapters from the books-in-progress mentioned below.
- The first-draft edit of the initial chapter of Percy Gutteridge’s series Studies in the Book of Joshua has been handed off to Denise for her more rigorous initial edit. We’ll be juggling future edits of this first chapter, “From Moses to Joshua,” with processing the remaining four chapters, as I can make them available. (I’m halfway through chapter 2, “Preparation for Victory.”) There’s a good chance that From Moses to Joshua will appear online in July, and perhaps as an ebooklet before year’s end.
- The other book in progress is Hearing God. Versions of the first three chapters have been online for some time (though they’re now awaiting update and revision). Thanks to the stimulus of teaching this series in my classes at North Florida Theological Seminary, I’ll have a solid outline for chapter 4 this month and one more for chapter 5 by next month. One of the “Deeper Dives” is more or less complete already. We’ll announce the newest chapters as they become available.
- There’s been so much positive feedback on our book The Curious Corners of Christmas, that it has almost caught up with The Rejected Blessing in terms of popularity. If you purchased or received a copy of Curious Corners, please inspire others by leaving some feedback on the book’s Amazon.com page. Thanks!
Focus on Prayer—and Praise!
Overseas teaching trips and CLOSED DOORS: In the closing chapters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, a blessing is spoken over one of the characters: “May you always appear where you are most needed and least expected.” That has been my prayer for our teaching trips over the last two decades, for the Lord to send me where I am most needed (and least expected, if that’s applicable). That has resulted in some delightfully well-timed and strategic ministry trips since 2008. But lately, all the previously opened “doors” seem closed, which causes me to ponder: Is my work completed in those places (at least for now)? Things continue to be a little blurry for the time being.
With every dirt road we drive on around here,and with every gas pump we pass,
we thank God for all-wheel drive
and the fuel economy
of our “new” (to us!) Subaru Outback.
PRAISE REPORT!: OPEN DOORS, car doors (attached to a new-to-us car!) can now be seen in our driveway. It makes us rub our eyes every morning and ask, “Lord, is that real? And is it really ours?” We haven’t purchased a vehicle in 23 years. But last week, as the result of God’s amazing provision through the loving generosity of a few, and your many prayers that the Lord would give us wisdom and patience and sensitivity in our automotive quest, we were singularly blessed with a 5-year-old Subaru Outback with very low miles. To do the story justice, highlighting all of the interwoven divinely directed details, would take several pages, but suffice it to say that God is worthy of all the glory and praise!
And those “open car doors” now “open the doors” to hospital visitation in Jacksonville (about an hour away by freeway), more local ministry trips, and my upcoming trek to the Iowa Holiness Association Camp Meeting in June.
We’re all human: “Now we see through a glass dimly,” which I think is another way of saying, “Sometimes things are blurry.” But God’s goal for us is to know His will clearly, that is, to see Him “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12 kjv). For those of you who know God’s will for your lives clearly, may He help you receive the courage from Him to follow His leading. For those of you who find the path forward “blurry” at the moment, focus on the Lord more than on the path ahead.
Much love in Jesus,
Jim
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