The Apple lost a bit of it's luster when Steve Jobs resigned as CEO on Wednesday. I appreciate Mr. Jobs. Like so many other families, Apple products have improved our lives. Thank you, Steve! Yesterday, I read Brandon Griggs' interesting article for CNN. In it, Griggs recaps Jobs' amazing career including his 1986 firing from Apple and his rehiring in 1996, after which Apple began its stratospheric climb. Let me share two brief snippets:
"I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple," [Jobs] said at Stanford in 2005. "It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick."
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," [Jobs] told Stanford University graduates during a commencement speech in 2005. "You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
I appreciate Steve's candor about getting canned. Setbacks and sour times come. Who hasn't been hit in the head with a brick? At the same time, he reminded me that technology can't solve all my problems! Jobs' 70 billion dollar company is proof of that. Every day really smart people work tirelessly to get it exactly right. Yet at the end of the day the best solution for the mysteries of life is, "you have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever."
I do not want to knock Steve Jobs. Today, a friend wrote, "Imagine what Steve Jobs could do if he lived forever in the new heavens and earth working as a king & priest to honor God & bless humanity." Lord, please make it so . . . because Mr. Jobs, like all of us, is on a collision course with the grave. This isn't fear-mongering, it is reality. Technology can't prolong it and even with 70 billion dollars you can't buy your way out it. Jobs is right, "you have to trust in something." We all do. But Jesus narrows the options to one -- himself!
"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." John 14:1-7 ESV
Setbacks and hard times are going to come. Only in Christ can we connect the dots.
____________ You can read Brandon Griggs full article by clicking here. You can connect with Brandon Griggs on Twitter by clicking here. You can connect with Tommy on Twitter by clicking here.