By God's grace, He was driving me to discipline myself to become a godly person. From the very next morning, I began to set my alarm clock. Being at an advanced state of laziness, I began to set my alarm for 08:00 in the morning. For me, that was early! So I began to get out of bed at that time, take a shower, and walk down to the beach alone. There I found a nice place in the rocks where I could sit and pray. For the first time in my life, I devoted myself to unhurried hours of prayer. I would spend time in prayer until about 10:00 and then go back to my family at the caravan. During the day, I began earnestly to read my Bible and the theological books I had borrowed from my father. I became so hungry for the word, that I could spend entire days simply reading through Scripture. What a blessed time that was.
I began to set my alarm clock back 10 minutes every week, so I didn't struggle with a huge, radical change that I would be unable to sustain. As I bumped the time back, I was eventually getting up before sunrise, going to the beach in the dark, and singing and praying there as the sun came up and well into the morning (9 or 10). The locals who used to take early morning walks on the beach began to notice me in the same place every morning and would look toward me and wave as they went by.
At that time, I still had very long hair. One of my greatest desires while growing up, was to be a rock star. I smile when I think about that now. But until my mid 20's that dream still clung to me in the form of long hair. It was a deep statement to everyone about who I was. It was an identity statement. In sinful rebellion, I hated school, and the hair and clothing rules that school enforced strengthened my hatred for short hair. What I'm saying is that for me to cut my hair was a huge issue.
I had been reading AW Tozer's "The Pursuit of God", when the Lord began to deal with me about my hair. The more I clung to my own personal demands, the more the Lord graciously showed me my pride and unwillingness to do anything that would cause me inconvenience. As my hair fluttered in the coastal breeze every morning, as I prayed, I became more conscious of it. How could I express devotion to the Lord every day, yet cling to my individualism? I still remember the morning as I sat on the beach in tears of desperation for the Lord to take me and draw me into a deeper relationship with Himself. I suddenly knew in my heart that what I had to do to progress was to humbly submit myself to the Lord in this area of my rock-star hair. I was at the stage where I didn't care about the fact that I would look like a conservative idiot with stereotypical short hair anymore. I made a passionate statement to the Lord. I declared that I would cut my hair. I so desired close fellowship with Him that I would cut my hair as a statement of devotion. I would tell anyone who asked about my hair that it was getting in the way between me and the Lord. How could I continue to express devotion to Christ while I was devoted to my own image and glory?
I went back to the caravan and gathered my family. We went straight to a barber shop (actually, it was a hairdresser, because we could find no barber) and a very surprised lady reluctantly honoured my request to cut my hair down to a no.2. When I arrived back at the caravan park, the security guard at the gate recognised my wife, but didn't know who I was, until I spoke to him.
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