Sunday, I gave myself a pretty bad haircut. It was a really hot evening, and I was impatient to be finished. Well, buzzing trimmer in hand (with no guard), I misjudged the angle of my head and on my way up, and… whoops!

In one fell swoop, I had a crater on the back of my head. Further inspection with a mirror revealed the horrifying truth: It was bad; I could give the ozone layer a run for its money. And really, all I could really do was laugh.

I think this was the icing on the cake to a long trial period in my life where I’ve just realized how uncool and incompetent I am. I’m not very suave. The words that come out of my mouth can be Shockingly Dumb. I can be forgetful, I can be insecure, I can be totally, totally awkward. I’m a Neanderthal.

In short, I can fail in more ways than I ever thought I could, and I’m not as well put together as I thought I was, and that’s been super depressing to come to grips with.

I’ve been learning the hard lessons of who I really am. I’ve had my pride knocked around a lot. Between myself and Sarah, I’ve discovered that I’m a Total Idiot when it comes to emotions and communication and all that good stuff (who can relate?!).

I’ve made mistakes at work. I’ve been a bad friend. I’ve done a lot of things that just weren’t up to par. I’m actually not as good of a guy than I gave myself credit for.

But, maybe that’s what leads to the laughing. Maybe this is just it; maybe I’m going through the wringer to get humbled and get a fresh beginning on this post-college life. Maybe this is exactly what it feels like to know how much I need Grace, and to be at my wits’ end regarding my own abilities to accomplish anything Good. And maybe there’s that joy that… heck. Crater or no crater, I’m loved. I’m not that big of a deal, and that’s not that big of a deal.

I know I need God. Dang. That’s the one thing that echoes through my mind every morning. I can’t make it through the day without your Grace, Jesus. I don’t care about anything else.

A verse, ever-quoted through this blog, is James 1:2-5. The words stumble through my lips by losers and failures like me, making them all the more powerful.

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

So maybe it’s going to be okay. I’m still growing. I’m still learning to depend on Jesus.

I’m gonna go find myself a hat.

It was a really bad idea.

But I think I finally realized what Psalm 63 means:

God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Running in the sun with the heat unbearably invading every pore, I think I’m viscerally experiencing what it’s like to seek to crave the shade, to be inexorably drawn to it, to seek shelter. It’s quite something to have nothing on your mind but the thought of water, to feel your body on the verge of crumbling until you can get yourself to a fountain and drink deeply and unashamedly.

I experienced today what it meant to know and thirst and crave the living God that much as if life itself depended on it. That’s how I want to live.

I started working at Riverbed about three months ago. Three months! Time does fly.

What do you do? I’m a User Interface Developer with them, where I design the management interface to the Steelhead, their WAN acceleration product. What this means in plain English is that I design the look and feel of the control panel to their product, a network device that speeds up data transfer over a network.

No, it’s not the sexiest thing to be doing, but hey it’s my first full-time job. My boss is really cool and my coworkers are really fun. I think I’m gonna learn a lot here.

I remember starting work and making a list of priorities:

1. Relationships > work.
2. Personal life > work life (and learn how to separate the two)
3. Work hard & work well.
4. Work to be generous.
5. Work as an act of worship.

Here’s what I’m learning:

1. The rhythm of work life is like nothing I anticipated. It wasn’t that total screeching halt that I braced myself for, but rather a slower, gradual fade into a 9A-6P rhythm. It’s not pulling crazy demands on my personal life right now, but I definitely understand that desire to come in after work, sit down and veg out in front of the TV.
2. It’s all about the relationships, and that’s not easy. If I’m going to be spending most of my life here at work, I really want to make it count. You know? I want these relationships to really mean something. Call me naive, but I think we can make real friends at work. And that requires a lot of effort.

   I’m discovering that this effort doesn’t come easy. Because work life has greatly shrunk the scope of my outside activities, it means that there needs to be real effort to make room to chill with coworkers over a pitcher at the bar across the street, or attend my coworker’s daughter’s high school musical (haven’t done that one yet!). And I’m finding that oftentimes it’s far easier to block out my whole schedule with things I plan but never leave room for the simple conversations that come my way every day.

3. I thought that making money wasn’t going to make me materialistic (that’s quite a mouthful). I thought I knew how to live generously and it would come easy. After all, I came from college, right? I lived off food scraps and horribly improvised recipes/abominations (see: spaghetti sauce sandwich). I went to Intervarsity, right? I know what it’s like to interface with the poor.

   It’s not easy, guys.

   I’m finding it’s true that the more you make, the more you compare to those who have more. Oh, I make x dollars a year? Well my coworker makes y more than me, and he’s only z quantity more/less experienced. And it’s true, when you never thought money would be an idol, you find yourself wishing that you had extra space in your wallet for that extra purchase.

4. I’m learning that the act of work itself is, well, worship. I’m thinking that satisfaction you get when you finish a big project having put your heart and mind and strength into it is, well, a reflection of how God felt when he finished us up on the 7th metaphorical (or literal, depending on your take) day.
5. I also thought that giving would be more glamorous than it really was. I’m not quite sure what I imagined. Maybe lavish praise from friends and acquaintances. “Oh, he’s so kind.” “Oh, he’s a generous fellow (which nobody can deny)” At the very least, maybe a gold star in the books.

Maybe it’s true, what Jesus taught: “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matt. 6:3). That’s the ultimate suck-it-up unglamorous thing to do. That’s zero recognition, not even from yourself. I think Jesus had a point when he said that. Don’t look to the act of giving to give you your full satisfaction. Do it because your Father loves you; his Holy Spirit moves and breathes through you.

And so it is with the workplace as well; I’m learning not to see it as my ultimate ends of satisfaction. I’m trying hard not to let it dictate my mood for the day or my pace of life in general. I’m working out what it means to have a career, to have skills, talents, passions, and to explore and expand them in the context of this new rhythm of life.

I think I make this transition out to be a lot harder than it actually is. I need to remember that I do these things because the Spirit moves and breathes through me. And in light of that, I can chill.

I gotta be honest, I’ve never felt so lost in my life.

But this is a good place. This is a different place. I’m going to be sitting down and writing more from here on out. It’s my way of keeping track of myself and making sure I’m still here.

This is day one. I am going to start by going to bed.

I think Grace is jackhammering into my creaky l’il religious heart right now. A simple word from Romans is tearing me apart like it hasn’t before.

8 “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, 

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

10 For with the heart one believes and is justified,

and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek;

for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:8-13

And the crux of the matter is that Jesus’ grace is freely accessible, demonstrating his love for us (”while we were sinners Christ died for us”). I don’t earn it. I simply believe. It’s been done, already, for two-thousand years. It’s not my initiative, it’s his.

I’ve been oblivious–comatose, maybe–to this scandalous truth. I’m still out there chasing my own reality, trying to shape my future with my own two hands. Though exhilirating, it’s getting tiring.

And here’s the Grace and glory of it all: I am simply his son. Nothing to prove. Adopted into the family, commissioned with a call. Nobody to compare myself against; nothing to brag about. To know that I am in Christ is enough to redirect my ambition, calm my nervous anxieties and free me to run.

My heart’s still creaky and old, but there are signs of life.

(This I know: to find true life, I must lose it to You.)

Remember flying kites in the backyard?
Isn’t Dad such a character?
Remember that cherry tree in the backyard? And the swing we put on it?
We miss your cooking so much, Mom. We’ve been looking forward to it forever.
Remember that pinata at Esther’s birthday party like… 12 years ago?
Man. What a sunset.

I don’t want to forget Africa. I can’t. I need to remember, I need to remember the simplicity of living. The endless skies. Friends to chill with when you come home to. Sarah living a couple hundred feet away. Waking up with a vibrant passion and singular purpose.

Here, things are different. If life in Africa was a comfortable stroll, life in the States is doing 90MPH on the freeway. I suppose I’m having lane-merge problems.

So it’s time to do taxes. And it’s time to start work. And don’t forget to take care of the yard. Oh, friends aren’t as accessible as they once were. And I still haven’t put roots down in a church community. And your family’s spread out across a couple of continents.

I feel like my mind and my heart are scattered over a million different people and places, and it’s frustrating. I need to focus. I need to hear. In many ways, I still haven’t felt like I’ve come back home–I’m somewhere between departing and arriving.

We meet Douglas, Nelisha, Faith, and friends to share some coffee on our final evening.

One morning, I woke to a revelation that I fear a life wasted.

I realized that one of my biggest fears was that if I were to totally surrender my life to follow Jesus anywhere, I’d become irrelevant. My skills and talents and education and training would be wasted. I wouldn’t reach my potential as a Web developer, a designer, an entrepreneur, a musician, or a writer.

Would I follow Christ if it meant being:

• a laughingstock?
• mocked and despised?
• alone?
• wasted potential?
• poor?

Do I believe that having Christ is worth far more than:

• a career?
• familiar friends?
• a relationship?
• a comfortable life?

Morning after morning, I’d stare these questions in the face and wrestle with the voices in my head. Could I really “deny [myself], take up [my] cross” and follow him? (Mk. 8:34) Even if it meant a life wasted in the world’s eyes?

I was reminded that God is my Treasure, and he is worth far more than anything I can lay claim to.

No matter how I wrestled with it, I realize that none of my fears held any water in the grand scheme of it all. I couldn’t make it work out in such a way where I could justify a life that was surrendered to God with one half and still held onto the other half.

I couldn’t deny the richness of the Gospel diamond. I couldn’t feel content with a lukewarm existence.

Ultimately, I was reminded that the my greatest desire was to enjoy God, and I couldn’t do it unless Jesus really was my Treasure.

About halfway through this trip, I started feeling peace. It was a simple, quiet contentment in living: I have really cool friends here and my skills are useful and the mosquitos have stopped biting, gosh I’m almost comfortable. 

I’m realizing that I was happy not because my conditions for my life were met–that my potential would be realized, or what I had to offer would be utilized–but that I could trust a God who would provide for me, where ultimately he himself was my great reward.

Collin Tomikawa once told us, “you don’t know how strong the altar is until you put the weight of your entire life on it.” 

That’s what I’ve been learning: that to know the will of God in my life, I must stake my life on the altar and trust.

Trust–that as I give it all, my good Father lavishes gifts on me: a solid community, fulfillment in using my skills,  and the ultimate gift of Jesus himself. Not to use these benefits as preconditions for surrender, but to hunger for the treasure of Christ so much that these benefits are “count[ed] as rubbish” in the ultimate calculus of this new life.

I’ve got a lot to learn, and a lot of listening to do as I return home. I don’t have concrete answers about the future just yet, but I trust that I’ll hear them in the right timing. I’ve told God that I’m open to wherever he’s going to lead me, be it in ministry, in the workforce or in something completely unforeseen and different. I know he’s my good Father, my Treasure, and I can follow Him.