Like many of you who heard the news yesterday, I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Computer genius, Steve Jobs. Being from the Bay Area and having grown up in the Silicon Valley, he became a household name and his computers were many of our first introduction to computer technology when we were kids in a classroom. I remember the Apple 1 as an elementary student and later the Mac Plus when I was in high school. I remember in college when Apple made a comeback after Steve took over the company again by introducing the iMac and shortly thereafter the iPod. Was it just cool, sleek products that made him exceptional? No, it was something entirely different: Steve Jobs did not settle for status quo thinking. He thought outside of the box, he was creative and innovative. "Think Differently" became the Apple slogan when he began creating new products that broke away from trying to compete with Windows. Bill Gates had already won that segment of the industry and Steve knew there was no way he would overtake it. So, instead of trying to maintain a distant second place to Microsoft, he excelled in being #1 in an area of demand that did not even exist yet.
So, what can be learned from his life? For me personally, I thank God for the life of Steve Jobs because first, he was a man made in the image of God and he demonstrated the greatness of man's potential to improve the lives of millions of people even in his fallen and unredeemed condition.
Second, Steve inspired millions to "Think Differently" and to challenge status quo thinking which hinders so much good from being done when we get trapped into an archaic rut of non-creative, lazy thinking. Fear of man's disapproval often keeps us from venturing out into something that we believe in because we let other people set limits on us. Steve Jobs refused to be boxed in to mediocrity that Microsoft, IBM and the whole PC world would have gladly let him occupy. Instead, he excelled by looking at uses for technology that the PC world was barely even aware of.
In his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, he said:
"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
I would filter those statements through a Biblical grid and take what he said to inspire me to listen to the inner voice of God's Spirit by not letting the noise of others' opinions drown out what I come to understand as right.
Lastly, Jesus' words come to mind that are so profound and they ring louder than anything anyone could possibly say about Steve Jobs or any other great person who passes away in death. Jesus said to those who were faced with the choice of following their own way or following Him in Mark 8:36 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?"
As far as we know, Steve Jobs' spiritual beliefs were rooted in New Age spiritualism and he probably died without Christ, thus having gained the whole world, he most likely lost his own soul. In his commencement speech he said something very profound, but got one thing wrong which will cost him eternity:
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
Everything he said here is absolutely right and should lead you to follow Christ as your salvation! But he concluded, as most lost men do: "There is no reason not to follow your heart".
I disagree, there is a reason, and it's not other people's opinions or dreams, it's yourself that makes you "the other people" and the problem for other people. Following your heart will lead you to ruin:
Jeremiah 17:9-10 The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.
Proverbs 28:26 He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.
Ironically, Steve Jobs' last words of advice to the Stanford crowd was "Stay hungry, stay foolish".
Stay hungry! Yes!! Find your satisfaction in the God who created you! Use your human potential for the good of millions of people governed by the Lordship of God!
Stay Foolish! No! Don't trust your heart and be a fool! Get a new heart that only God can create! Imagine what a redeemed Steve Jobs could have done.
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