The afternoon rain had just stopped. The café was so quiet that one could hear the droplets sliding down the glass. A-Lin (pseudonym) sat by the window, leaning slightly forward, his hands folded on the table.
Ten years ago, he was working late into the night fixing bugs at a major Internet company. Today, he stands on the pulpit, facing a group of people carrying tears and questions. He calls this cross-boundary life a "system upgrade," though the cost has been far heavier than he imagined.
The Order of a Programmer
A-Lin loves logic. During college, he spent more time in the computer lab than in his dormitory. The screen flashing black and white characters looked like stars in the night sky. When debugging succeeded, he felt an indescribable joy: "When the code runs, it's as if the world suddenly aligns."
After graduation, he entered a major Internet company. In those years, the industry was growing rapidly, and programmers were almost the darlings of the era. All-nighters and overnight launches were the norm, and he accepted them willingly. His salary kept rising, his parents were proud, and his friends were envious. But late at night, staring at screens full of code, he often felt a strange blur: "Is this really the life I want for the rest of my days?"
That question was like background noise—it didn't disrupt the main melody until an accident brought it to the forefront.
System Crash
It was an ordinary workday. He was staring at a pile of error reports in the office when suddenly everything went dark, and he collapsed. When he woke up, he was in the hospital. The doctor warned that he must rest and stop overworking. For the first time, he was forced to put down the computer.
No requirement sheets, no iteration plans—only white walls, IV drips, and empty time. Lying in bed, he asked himself: "If I never woke up tomorrow, what would my life leave behind?" A launched project? A few lines of code soon to be replaced by new technology? Or a name written in some company document that could be overwritten at any time?
"It was like a system crash—and I realized I had no backup."
The Call in the Silence
During his recovery, he walked into a church. At that time, there was no grand plan—he simply wanted a quiet place. The words of the Bible were not as precise as logical formulas, but they gradually brought peace to his heart. It wasn't the feeling of "solving a problem," but of a comfort he had never known.
"I suddenly realized that a person is not just a machine. Debugging code does not equal debugging life."
The idea of "becoming a pastor" was not clear from the beginning. At first, he only wanted to stay and learn more. Until one day, during a visit, he saw a pastor sitting quietly beside a family member of a cancer patient, without giving lofty words, simply being present. That scene deeply shook him.
"It was as if I saw another kind of value—not creating a perfect system, but accompanying someone through collapse."
The Struggle
The real struggle followed. By day, he still wrote code at the company. At night, he buried himself in theology books. The two worlds pulled him apart more and more.
Friends persuaded him: "Are you out of your mind? Stay on the tech track—you'll be a director in a few years." His family worried: "You studied for so many years, finally got a stable, high-paying job, and now you want to be a pastor?"
He himself doubted countless times: "Am I just acting on impulse? Was it the weakness after illness that gave me illusions?"
In those years, he often woke up at dawn, staring at the ceiling, with two systems running in his mind: one, a safe and stable career plan; the other, chaotic and uncertain, a calling.
"It was like warning messages popping up in the code. You can ignore them once or twice, but in the end, you have to face them."
Resignation
The day he made the decision, there was no dramatic scene. He simply walked into his supervisor's office and placed his resignation letter on the desk. The supervisor froze for a few seconds: "What are you going to do?"
"Go to seminary."
The air went silent. His supervisor stared at him as if looking at a madman. At that moment, he knew he had stepped onto a path of no return.
Debugging at Seminary
When he first entered seminary, he thought logical thinking would make things easy. But the reality was entirely different.
"Programming requires efficiency—a bug must be fixed immediately. But in a seminary, a teacher might have you dwell on one passage of Scripture for a week, even with no answer."
The uncertainty made him restless. Yet slowly, he learned a new rhythm: some questions cannot be "solved"—they can only be "accompanied."
Beyond the classroom, he also had to do internships: visiting patients, counseling families. At his first funeral, seeing the family weeping, he froze in place. That was when he realized: a pastor is not the one who provides answers, but the one who bears the weight.
The Reality of Being a Pastor
After becoming a pastor, he discovered reality was more complicated than he imagined. Some came to him with broken marriages. Some, depressed, refused to leave their rooms, and he had to knock again and again. Some, angry from church conflicts, required him to act as a "firewall."
"This job is harder to debug," he said.
But precisely because of this, the rewards were more real. He remembers one young man who was on the verge of despair due to a broken family. A-Lin walked with him daily, talking and encouraging him. Years later, at the young man's wedding, he embraced A-Lin and said, "Thank you for not giving up on me back then."
"That moment," A-Lin said, "was worth more than writing any line of code."
The Light and Shadow of Family
His income dropped sharply, and life became suddenly tight. His wife struggled to accept it, leading to constant arguments. It wasn't until she followed him into the church and saw him accompany those in pain that she began to understand.
"A pastor is not a superhero. If the pulpit is bright but the home is dark, there is no true testimony."
Awakening
Now, he no longer defines it as "giving up."
"The past was not wasted. My training in logic makes my sermons clearer. My technical background helps me manage the church more systematically. Every experience has become nourishment."
When he said this, his tone was calm, yet it was like a stone dropping firmly.
"Life cannot just be about writing code until retirement. What truly matters is finding a calling worth responding to with one's life."
That afternoon, the rain had stopped. Outside the café window, passersby walked by with umbrellas, droplets sliding down the glass. A-Lin closed his Bible, as if closing a chapter of memory—yet also opening a new one.
Originally published by "Career Survival Guide"
- Translated by Elena Li
