Category: Life Lessons – Experience
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🌄 Curious Pilgrim — Part 2
God Is Love: A Different Starting Point A Reflection on Holiness, Love, and the God I Was Taught The God I Was Taught In Systematic Theology and Bible Ethics at Free Will Baptist Bible College, I was taught about the attributes of God. God is: all-knowing all-powerful present everywhere unchanging eternal And beyond those: loving…
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When Brutality Breaks Through: A Lesson I Was Not Ready For
There are moments in life when something we read does not simply inform us—it shakes us. When I was a student at Free Will Baptist Bible College, Dr. Simpson assigned each of us a book to read for English Composition. Because I was from Mississippi, she suggested I read Sanctuary by William Faulkner. At seventeen,…
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Born Guilty… or Becoming Human?
Curious Pilgrim — Part 1 A Reflection on Sin, Choice, and the Journey of Becoming Introduction All my life, I have lived with a quiet tension. The tension between what I was taught…and what I have experienced.Between Scripture, tradition, reason, and the life I have actually lived. I remember sitting in Systematic Theology classes, listening…
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The Curious Pilgrim
Is Truth in the Eye of the Beholder? A Signature Reflection on Epistle to the Romans 7:13–25 🌅 Opening: A Question That Will Not Let Me Go There are questions that come and go…and then there are questions that stay with you. This is one that has walked with me most of my life: Is…
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Are These the Worst of Times… or Just Clearer Times?
A Curious Pilgrim Reflection on Division, Faith, and Following Jesus Daily Office Readings:John 5:19–29 • Romans 2:12–24 • Jeremiah 4:9–10, 19–28 • Psalm 71 A Pilgrim’s Honest Question Lately, I have found myself asking a question that I suspect many are quietly asking: Are these the worst of times… or are we simply seeing more…
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When Darkness Is Exposed by Light
A Daily Office Reflection from The Curious Pilgrim Remembering a Summer in Mississippi This evening after work, I began watching the film Ghosts of Mississippi, the story of the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963 and the long road to justice that finally led to the conviction of Byron…
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When Wailing Turns to Dancing
A Reflection on Psalm 30, Deuteronomy 7:17-26, Titus 3:1-15, and John 1:43-51 One of the gifts of the Daily Office is that it does not hide the tension of faith. Some mornings the readings feel comforting and clear. Other mornings, they raise questions that linger long after the prayers are finished. Today’s readings are like…
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Fret Not: When Religion Blocks the Channel to God”
A Reflection on Psalm 37, Deuteronomy 7, Titus 1, and John 1 A Note from the Curious Pilgrim As I have grown older in my faith journey, I have learned that reading Scripture is not always about having the right answers. Sometimes it is about learning to ask better questions while continuing to walk in…
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Sin as the Refusal of Love: A Progressive Reflection on Today’s Office Readings
Today’s readings—Psalm 32, Jonah 3:1–4:11, Hebrews 3:1–14, and Luke 18:9–14—are oftenframed as being “about sin.” Traditionally, sin has been defined as transgression of divine law,falling short of holiness, or moral failure. While these definitions have biblical grounding, theyhave also too often fueled fear-based religion, legalism, and spiritual comparison—the veryposture Jesus critiques in the parable of…
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The Table, the Porch, and the Mystery
5 Three places have shaped my understanding of life more than I realized at the time: The Communion table. The front porch. The village green in a good murder mystery. At first glance, they seem unrelated. One is sacred. One is domestic. One is fictional entertainment. But the older I get, the more I see…
