you are my procedure

Life is but one step at a time, but because you're with me, I will not fear

[progressum]

July 6 – 10 min, sharing with you

LORD,

Amidst my pride and building of my own life, my career my family my body my mind, despite any progress that I make, all of it is built on quicksand if not on the foundation of your eternal love and boundless grace for all of us that you've created.

So I want to center every day on you. I want every day to begin with a conversation with you. My children are an every day reflection of how much I lack and man how despondent would I be if I tried to continue to lean on myself to be perfect. The perfection that I want to craft out of my kids when I myself am broken and imperfect is lunacy. I want to be centered around grace, I want to be filled by your spirit and the fruit that bears love, patience, kindness, goodness. What an insane, irrational thing that you've patiently waited for me all these years, and you consistently do, to wait for me to turn my gaze upon you. If it were me, I would have said "forget this dude".

I'm internalizing more and more these days that life is what you manifest. I've been able to articulate and flesh out how my faith has changed to both Josh and Spencer over our backyard bonfire, but also to Ryan and Phil in Monterrey – I choose to believe in you even if it may not be true, so that I hold my faith in you in higher regard than rational thinking or logic. Postmodern Christianity, Kalantzis at Wheaton. I think grappling with this actually makes dealing with the brokenness of the church institution easier and frankly, that's been something I wrestle with a lot and has kept me away from the church institution.

Top of mind, LORD, I give you the ultimate conundrum of me and Gelly's lives: when and if to move to Hong Kong to be closer to family.

Option 1: Move to Hong Kong end of year and come back in 5+ years

Intercultural experience that Gelly and I had for both Brooklyn and Aiden when they're young

Easier transition when they're young, and easier transition when we move back to Chicago

Korea parents come back to Chicagoland in 3-5 years, can return when they come back

3 hour flight to Korea, can visit parents in Korea often

monday APJ career development, travel for work and exposure to APJ market

Close to in-laws while they're able

Question marks:

Gelly's career development

Kids' schooling - maybe like in Tung Chung local school?

No community of friends, leaving friends here behind for a bit

Option 2: Move to Hong Kong in 10 years and come back when kids are ready for college

Intercultural experience for Brooklyn and Aiden when they're older in high school, come back to the US when they're ready to go to school

Help take care of in-laws when they're older and need more support, they'll be 80 in 10 years time

Careers much more developed by then, easier transition

Can purchase larger home now for more space, potentially even 3rd kid while we wait before we leave

Question marks:

Korea parents will already be here in Chicago - leave them here while we're in Hong Kong? Only until kids are done with high school, then move back and be near the children

Big transition for kids when they're older

Option 3: Stay in Chicago

Purchase forever home now

3rd kid possibility

Community is here, school is set, we know the systems

Korea parents will come to Chicagoland in about 3-5 years

Daniel + Sebeen (if they're still together) will return to the states in 3-5 years as well

Question marks:

Lose opportunity to move when the kids are young and the in-laws are young

Kids remain pure Americans with little cultural exposure besides annual trips abroad to Asia

Doing digging, it feels that there is no straight, one answer for how to proceed with the future. And LORD, frankly, what an insane luxury that we have the ability to choose the way that we do. At the heart of it, it's not a logistics question as much as it is a moral question. Something we need to do is even discuss with our parents what they want, but more than that, I need to ask you LORD if these are at all not pleasing to you and not honoring to you. To be close to our parents both sides, to take care of them, repay their company with ours when they're in need. The tension between my in-laws and my parents and being in close proximity to them, this is a burden I need to figure out a compromise for. Press this burden upon us to make the right decision and have the right conversations.

[progressum]

It’s been a week since I’ve injured my back doing Romanian deadlifts and I’m finally back in the gym after taking care of Aiden for a week. This week my focus is on energy - I need to recover well with good sleep, especially go get over my sickness, so that I can be better with my husband and father duties. This week was very difficult keeping Aiden at home all week while suffering from back pain. But the worst is over and I can focus on recovery.

Consistency,

Maintenance,

Mobility,

Mindfulness,

Patience,

Output

[progressum]

Who or what interaction recently made you feel seen, understood, or less alone in your perspective?

Gelly – coming back home, she took over Aiden duty because she knew the day that I’d been through with the kids. I felt very seen.

What specific internal discipline or personal virtue (like your commitment to your health or work) are you seeing "pay off" right now?

I see 6 weeks of dietary and physically discipline paying off quite literally on the scale but also just with the sheer amount y of more confidence I have in my physical ability. It makes me want to continue the compounding effect that progressive overload weightlifting can have.

What is a specific friction point or "messy" challenge you’re currently facing, and what is one small, tactical way you can gain more command over it today?

I’m going to be with Aiden all week because we don’t have childcare here. I need to be good about ensuring he’s entertained enough that he won’t be crying when I’m on calls, starting with getting him up early on a regular schedule.

[progressum]

Inconsistency is creeping in - with my reading, journaling, and now even my 10,000 steps a day. Structure around the habits I want to build reinforced is the key but I’m starting to see cracks in my system. I need to habitualize reading in the morning and reading in the evening. I also need to make sure I carve out walking at the end of the day. My diet is working because I have structure and discipline- I need to maintain this.

[progressum]

Something hits me at my core to hear that Adney – who rose through the ranks exactly the same way that I did, from CX, to associate CS, to regular CS – is moving onto an agentic organization where he will be making double our currently shared salary. Pure projection of "wow, I wish I could do that." Absolutely thrilled for him and glad to call him friend. It kicks me in the butt, in a very good way – adjacent to what I've been saying, this year is the advent of the agent. And I'm in a very good position to thrust into this unchartered territory.

I need to work harder and faster to be the first to get these projects that are tangiel, right in front of me, off the ground. I need to get to senior in September so that I can position myself in the fork in the road that I said I would: move with my current org remote to Hong Kong, or find another role in Hong Kong.

2026 is a big year. Let's get it.

[progressum]

I made a private posit to my colleagues at the pre-CCO kickoff – we are now an AI company. And we really are. The agents are actually working. I really need to get this CS outreach project off the ground - be the first to make it happen - and then mark this as my flagship project that I delivered upon to justify my senior status.

[progressum]

After a week’s streak, I succumbed. Not rooted in the word, not discipline in prayer, not stable in consistency. But much better than before. My weight continues to drop – an affirmative reminder that consistent routine matters if I stick to it with discipline. Let’s make this day 1 and be consistent.

[progressum]

For the first time in my life, I need to be cautious about food anxiety. I have a clear goal, I’m able to maintain and track and systematically be consistent for the first time ever. And for the first time, I went one day eating 1,100 calories without feeling hungry. Truly shocking. But with online consultation, I’m weary now that this could be a bad habit of the mind, and it can lead to psychological problems. I’m now keeping track on a weekly basis, not daily. I’m at Popeyes right now, and that’s okay, because I’m still in a deficit for the week to be able to hit my April goal. I’m very excited that the structured consistency that I’ve labeled as a “12 week habit plan” is improving not only my body, but my mind and even my soul. But I need to keep it healthy, and not extreme.

[progressum]

Prayer – I want to be connected to you because you are in it of itself, goodness. I repent that I don’t depend on you - help me to change the habit of my mind and my soul. Fill me in moments of frustration, anxiety, disorder and lack of control, and scale my eyes to see you in the matrix of everything around me, particularly in times like last night.

[progressum]

Mark 9 – the disciples couldn’t drive out the demon from the young boy, and Jesus has to step in. When they ask him, “why couldn’t we drive the demon out?“, He responds: “ this kind can only come out by prayer.”

He’s telling them, “ were you trying to use my power without relying on me?”

Prayer is the act of constant, desperate reliance on God. If I’m not praying, I’m aren't relying; I’m just performing.

[progressum]

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

– Mark 9:23

“Believes” isn’t necessarily characterizing Jesus as a genie in a bottle here. Belief is more alliance than it is wishing. Where we are aligned to God‘s heart, not even death is outside of his jurisdiction. “ if you are “in” Jesus, I wouldn’t ask for things that contradict God’s character.

LORD, are my desires that I lift up to you pleasing to you?

[progressum]

Has working out consistently – that is, doing something difficult as a habitual practice every day – making me a better parent? I seem to have more patience and tolerance than I did before the 12 week program. Or is it that I am grounded in the small mustard seed of faith that I’m eager to plant in myself in Jesus as the Gospel of Mark inspires me to?

[progressum]

Mark 7 – Jesus arrived after the “sign” that was promised by the prophecy that Elijah would come again before the Messiah in John the Baptist. But many did not use the spiritual awareness to understand this. In the theme of preventing anticipation for political upheaval and convolution of the messianic message, he scoffs at the Pharisees’ request for a sign that he is the Messiah. Why? It’s not because he doesn’t want them to see - it’s already being revealed, but more importantly, it’s telling that they want the proof so they don't have to do the work of following him into the unknown.

[progressum]

If you have "strong faith" in thin ice, you will drown. If you have "weak, trembling faith" in thick ice, you will be saved.

– Tim Keller, on the justification of faith

[progressum]

We often mistake faith for a finished cathedral—a massive, vaulted structure of perfect doctrine and political foresight. We assume that to be "healed" is to have passed a final exam in theology.

But the desert roads of Mark tell a different story. They tell of a God who responds to the desperate, the messy, and the technically incorrect. The Syrophoenician woman didn’t have a manifesto; she just knew she was hungry and that even the dogs get the crumbs. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to understand the "soul" before He touches the "skin." He meets us in the physical ache, the immediate crisis, and the superstitious reach for the hem of a garment.

Why? Because faith isn’t a list of facts you’ve mastered; it is simply the direction of your hunger. He rewards the "simple" not to keep them small, but to prove that the Kingdom isn't a gated community for the enlightened. It’s a field where the seed is planted in the mud of our confusion, trusting that the growth happens in the quiet, long after the miracle is over.

LORD, is it really that simple? That we bring the desperation, and you bring the rest? I need to keep at the center of my devotions to you that progress isn’t knowing everything—it’s just turning toward You while I’m still blind.

[progressum]

These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are merely human rule

– Mark 7:7, Jesus responding to the Pharisees with a reference to Isaiah

[progressum]

John's death – for Herod to save his face and reputation in front of all his guests, not necessarily because he wanted to kill him himself. John must have sat in the dungeons, wondering where this coming Kingdom was that he was told by God to prophecy about. The more I read, the more the scales over my eyes are being lifted – it's never been about building a political system that adheres to Christianity. It has always been one of the heart, one of the soul – one that draws us back to the Creator.

The contrast between Herod's banquet and Jesus's banquet. One filled with social pressure to perform and adhere to social standards of elitism. The other filled with compassion, both for the soul and for the bellies of five thousand.

What do I need to let go of in my mind regarding the expectations that we have for how we are shaping political, economic, and social structures? We lift it to you.