My Spiritual Journey
"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14, NKJV).
From Professor to Christ-Following Pilgrim
Image: The Lonely Road - Far West Texas - Trace Pirtle
When I first felt the nudge to begin this Fruit of the Spirit Blog, I didn’t plan on adding an “About” page. The Lord was clear, "Write anything you want, but it must be about My characteristics--the Fruit of the Spirit.
Thus, each post will focus on various aspects of the nine fruit of the Spirit. However, I also wanted you to know what a "slow Biblical learner" I've been and how long my spiritual journey has taken.
So here it is—my journey from university professor to Christ-following pilgrim. I’ll share the good, the bad, and the beautifully redemptive work of God along the way.
As I often say, have low expectations of me and high expectations of God!
May He bless you and yours abundantly.
— Trace
Out of the Fog: A Journey into Light
One beautiful fall morning in 2001, I sat in a Laredo coffee shop with my colleague Randy—a Buddhist who looked like "Buddha Santa Claus"—when we stumbled onto a question that wouldn't let us go: "Why are we here?" What started as a discussion about why our students needed to show up for class turned into something far more profound. We discovered what we called "magic"—those unrepeatable moments when hearts and minds connect in ways that feel impossibly orchestrated. Back then, I was spiritually asleep, colder than lukewarm in my faith, still carrying existential questions from my days as an Air Force missile launch officer. I didn't realize it at the time, but that morning marked the beginning of my journey toward recognizing what I'd been calling "magic" was actually something far more profound: divine appointments, where God shows up in our ordinary moments with extraordinary purpose.
For two years, I wandered between coffee shops and golf courses with my Buddhist friend Randy B and Presbyterian Pastor Dale, chasing questions about quantum physics, mountain-moving faith, and whether all paths lead to God. We were "Nomads of the Noetic"—all speed and no direction, equally fascinated by Mormonism on Monday and Thessalonians on Thursday. I was intellectually curious but spiritually empty, one foot planted in the known while the other dangled over the abyss of the unknown. Then Pastor Dale invited me to a Walk to Emmaus retreat, and I reluctantly agreed—suspicious of cult-like indoctrination and resentful of three wasted days. What I encountered instead was a multitude of lights in the darkness, brothers living as "doers of the Word," and a moment when God captured my heart in ways no philosophy or "medicine" could replicate. The nomadic wandering was over. My pilgrim walk had begun.
After the spiritual high of my Walk to Emmaus, I was searching for more fire—something beyond coffee shop philosophy and head-level Christianity. My wife and I landed at a Pentecostal church where worship was loud, passionate, and unlike anything I'd experienced. I was baptized in front of 250 pairs of watching eyes, hoping the plunge would finally transform me into someone who genuinely liked people the way my brother Randy P did after his conversion. It didn't. The church insisted I needed to speak in tongues to truly receive the Holy Spirit, and week after week, a persistent sister dragged me closer to that moment of truth. Then came the day a missionary lined us up like dominoes at a firing squad, striking foreheads and shouting "FIRE!" as people collapsed around me. Palm strike to my head—nothing. Again—still nothing. I stood there, the only one left standing, face crimson with embarrassment, yet somehow hearing God whisper, "You are not dead, you are alive." What the church saw as failure, God saw as something else entirely.
Trace Pirtle
Exploring our daily walk with Christ by bearing fruit of the Spirit.
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