Steve Jobs: How to live before you die

Am I a Treasure Seeker?

Steve Jobs, may not have been a Christian I told my boys this morning, but perhaps we can learn something from his life as we search diligently.  I read to my boys Sean and David from the Bible about searching, taking up their cross, with all their heart, because our King is not a “safe Lion, but he is good” (C.S. Lewis describing Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). I accept that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by him (John 14:6). What is our role? How then should we live?

Practically how does searching work out? According to Jeremiah, God has plans to prosper us, but we are to search with all our heart. The specific plans and dreams I search out are almost secondary to HOW I search…with all my heart, diligently as the Bereans who were counted by God as noble. (Acts 17:10).

Steve Jobs was a treasure seeker…perhaps of a different kind. But perhaps I can learn from his life, as he tells it. The danger of summarizing any thought is losing the precious context. Can you search for truth eagerly? “Cliff notes” abbreviated version below, (the questions are my own) full version here.

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die
Commencement speech at Stanford 2005


1. Connecting the Dots
“School, I couldn’t see the value in it”

Looking back…(dropping out) was one of the best decisions I ever made, I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the class I was interested in.

It is impossible to connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. You have to trust that the dots will connect in the future. Believing that the dots will connect down the road, that will give you the confidence to follow your heart.

• [Question: Do we search for God with ALL our heart, following and trusting Him to connect the dots? Do we believe He will work it out?]
  

2. Love and loss: Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that ever happened to me.
“Publically I was let go from the focus of everything in my adult life…it was devastating. Public failure, and I thought about running away from the valley, but I still loved what I did.

“Getting fired was the best thing that could have ever happened to me” It freed me to be a beginner again. The heaviness of being successful was replace by the lightness of being a beginner, less sure about things. Freed me to be one of the most creative periods of my life. Started NeXt, Pixar.

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t lost my job at Apple. Sometimes life gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I am convinced that the one thing that kept me going is that I loved what I did. You have got to find what you love.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. …Keep looking, don’t settle.

• [Questions:

1. Do I hold onto or settle for less when it seems our dreams are dashed, or do I spring forward when I hit bottom, accepting change as positive, even sovereign for my future?
2. Do I enter as a little child? 
3. Did you know that adults smile 30 times per day on average, but children over 300?]

3. Death
“If you live each day as if it was your last, one day you will most certainly be right. I have looked on the mirror and asked myself, if today was the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tools 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.

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.”

• [Question: If today was your last day, would you want to do (for God’s glory) what you are about to do, or are you MERELY doing what someone expects (dogma)? If someone took away all our commentary, all our recorded sermons, what would you say that you BELIEVE?]

“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” Steve Jobs 2005
After this speech the iPhone and the iPad were brought to market. How am I searching?

Weep? Would you do this for your enemy?

A sin against the LORD so stunning it cannot be named by a single word: pride, arrogance, insolence, haughtiness.  This sin meets it's just end of desolation and great destruction for the nation of Moab in Jeremiah 48. Yet the Lord does not rejoice or boast, what does the Lord do? 

He weeps. This tells us more about the God we serve, than the Moabites. 

Moab was a people who born of Lot who worshiped a false God Chemosh, and sacrificed adults, even babies to him. They resisted Moses (Balak and Balam in Num 22-25),  Jehoram/Jehoshaphat (2 Kings 3:4-27), and the Lord even used them to help destroy His Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:2). 


There is something else, however, which unleashes the righteous fury of the LORD - their contempt for God’s people. "Moab and Seir said, 'Behold, the house of Judah has become like all the other nations'" (Ezekiel 25:8-11).  The Lord responds in vengeance "Cursed is  he who does the work of the LORD with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps his sword from bloodshed." (Jeremiah 48:10). 

Clearly, we see a jealous God.  In the midst of His fury, this is what the LORD said:

"I know his insolence, declares the Lord;his boasts are false,
his deeds are false.

Therefore I wail for Moab;
I cry out for all Moab;
for the men of Kir-hareseth I mourn.
Jeremiah 48:30-31;

What!  Wail???  This screams that our God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Later in Mathew we read the testimony of Jesus, who again finds an unwilling group of children: 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" Matt 23:37

"And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it" Luke 19:41

Today, in mourning I became a little more like the one I worship....  and He has comforted me by giving me Himself.  (Matt. 5:4)

Is 48:46
Jeremiah 48:46-47
Woe to you, O Moab!
The people of Chemosh are undone,
for your sons have been taken captive,
and your daughters into captivity.

Yet I will restore the fortunes of Moab
in the latter days, declares the Lord.”
Thus far is the judgment on Moab.

 

Imagine yourself as a living house. Mere Christianity

From an old friend, in one of his greatest surprises both in content and timing.... Thanks Andy.

I thought you might like this quote from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, one of my favorite books:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

ps (from Brad).  The picture is the future site of Restoring Lives West, a ministry of Lynhurst Baptist Church for homeless teens,  just south of Washington St.  in Indianapolis.  Even though it seemed beautiful on the outside, it needed a complete re-do on the interior.  We actually stripped this old house down to the studs on the inside, it seemed such a fitting picture of what C.S. Lewis describes about you and me.   Your will LORD.

Homework for the teens, and their parents.

A good question, what is one way we need to grow? What verses does God help you identify to answer the question? My new years resolutions are:

1. Praise more, criticize less
2. Major in the majors
3. BOLDLY pursue contentment through risk with others to the GLORY of God. 

And the verses given to me to walk this out?  

PUT ON ....Gal 5:22-24 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

PUT OFF....Col 3:8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Its been a while since the obscene was a problem in my speech, but the rest of it, anger, wrath mailice.....are not far enough away.  Why?  My expectations are apart from the LORDs, I have not learned to be content in all things.  Not learned to learn in all things, and still praying "Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief.

The One: Is marriage possible? (in three minutes)

There is a story behind this teaching from over a year ago, I cannot tell it now...but one day I will.  My friend Scott talks about where dreams can carry to the wrong goals, but that yes, marriage is possible.  Below is a transcription of the best part, about 3 minutes.

QUESTION:  Is it really possible for marriage to work? …to commit themselves for a lifetime? If you look around maybe not, statistics say 1/2 the people who get married don't make it. …If possible, what does it take?  ….

RESPONSE: "....we talked about this thing:  how we all, at a young age, we start looking for "the one", you know  its just something that is "ingrained" in us. We start looking for the one. 

We think If we just find the one, our life will be complete. Young adults and single people you know it easy sometimes to get  obsessed with finding "the one". 

Sometimes you get married and realize that "I choose the wrong one" and you you start looking for "the one" again.

Even little girls from a very young age: there are fairy tales about the princess and the knight, the one knight who comes and rescues them and little girls as they grow up and start dreaming and planning at a very young age their wedding night (or their wedding day).  I guess its the boys that are think about the wedding night.  

So the girls' think about the wedding day, and think about walking down the aisle, they think about their dress, making their vows, getting married, they think about having a family, having the 2.5 children that we have, and just living happily ever after. 

What we said that first week is that maybe "the one" we are looking for is the wrong one.  Maybe "the one",  as followers of Christ, as Christians, maybe the one everyone should be looking for is actually God. And its a relationship with Christ that we need to find and discover and pursue in our lives.  And have that as the foundation.  And then once we have that as "the one" with Christ, then we can go and start looking for our "two".  And we set ourselves up for a much more likelihood of success if we have the one in order and pursue our two that we want to marry and spend our lives with. 
…..

Full teaching here... Thank you Scott Himes, it was good to remember brother
 http://blip.tv/file/3258565?filename=Lifechurchindy-SurvivingAsOne972.m4v

LOGOS Leadership

If you can only take away one thing, it was a successful meeting, conference or whatever.

A consultant from LOGOS institute a communication agency, came to teach senior leaders at work.  I got a surprise invitation, even though my pay grade just didn't match the audience.  I sat for less than an hour...but couldn't help thinking about how it might help me talk to my son, and talk to God about those who NEED help.

LEADERSHIP is understanding where they might be, meeting them where they are.  Attentive to what they care about and focus on that first. LISTEN

1. Prevent confusion: too much communication spent fixing self-inflicted harm
2. Facts are rarely persuasive:  You lead with data, most people don't respond well to data.
3. Need to be intentional: Listen