Steve Jobs and Life’s Three Most Important Questions
The recent passing of Steve Jobs, one of the brilliant pioneers of the Information Age, has brought many thoughts to my heart and mind over the past week.
I certainly share the global adulations of his amazing life and work. He changed the world through his numerous inventions including the MacIntosh computer, The iPhone, iPod, iPhone, iPad and the multi-million dollar industry that they spawned. He was one of the great pioneers of the high tech era—an eclectic icon to this generation.
But I wonder if Steve Jobs ever correctly answered life’s three most important questions. His ultimate fate and legacy will hinge on those answers.
So will yours.
Before looking at those questions, I agree with the outpouring of global sentiment that Steve Jobs made a significant contribution to the world as we now know it—especially in computing and digital entertainment. Ed Feulner, the president of the Heritage Foundation, and certainly one of opposite political persuasion from Jobs, had these kind words to say:
“Apple Computer, the company Jobs founded at the age of 21 was valued at the close of business yesterday at $350 billion. From computing to music to journalism, Jobs changed the way the world did its business and leisure. Very little of what we do today has not been impacted somehow by Jobs and his company. He certainly changed my life from my first Apple III with floppy discs almost 30 years ago, costing about $6000 and possessing a small fraction of the capabilities of my streamlined new iPad 2, all at less than 10 percent of the cost of that early dinosaur.”
“Macs transformed the way people came to see computers, from gizmos only nerds understood or liked to things almost as organic as the partly bitten apples of the ever-present logos. Creative designing and thinking flowed naturally from a Mac, powering the creativity and productivity that have become the hallmark of the American economy. In music, Jobs changed the industry by taking it digital.”
“As for journalism and reading in general, we have now gone back to where we started: the biblical tablet. The elegant slab we take with us wherever we go can do the same for us and take us, no matter where we are, anywhere in the universe our imagination wants to visit. All this was the result of the happy coincidence of genius in an individual and a system. Jobs was an individual with special DNA.”
I agree wholeheartedly.
I never met Steve Jobs, but I’m aware of his history. He was adopted as a child–a half-Arab boy from a Persian background. After living a fairly normal American middle class life, he went in his early twenties to India in pursuit of religious truth and enlightenment. What he learned there must have stuck. When he later married, the ceremony was conducted according to Zen Buddhist ritual.
In Steve’s interviews and speeches, there’s an absence of references to God. However, not long after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, he gave a commencement speech at Stanford University that gave us a small window into his soul. Here are some excerpts:
“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my
life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
Facing his own mortality motivated Steve Jobs to think about priorities. To his collegiate audience he stressed the value of living as if it was his last day; He talked about the need to “follow your heart and intuitions;” He encouraged the graduates to reject the “dogma” of others, and think for themselves.
But I hear a deafening silence on life’s three most important questions. What are those questions, and how do they impact the true legacy of our lives?
Number One: Is there a God?
This is the most important question. Everything else hinges upon it. If there’s no God, then I can pretty much do what I want. Without God, each one of us is our own god and everything is unanswerable, without purpose, going nowhere, and in a word—meaningless. If there’s no God, then you don’t need to listen to others but simply follow your own heart desires.
However, that answer is not true.
Yes, there is a God.
Like many folks, including Steve Jobs, I encountered some problems in my youthful years that sent me searching for truth. I found it in the reality of God as vividly seen in his creation and wonderfully revealed in His Word—the Bible. Once I knew there was a God, that revelation changed everything in my life, world, and calling.
But God’s reality only prompted the second most important question:
Number Two: If there is a God, then how do I come into right relationship with Him?
It’s one thing to be aware that there’s a God, a moral universe, and a right and wrong way to live—i.e. good and evil. It’s another thing to meet God’s conditions for friendship with Him.
As I sought to get to know God, and studied His Word, it became plain that the problem on earth and in my own life was selfishness; That God was a Holy God who hated sin out of love and truth; That I was a sinner and couldn’t change myself; But that God had provided a way for my forgiveness and transformation through the death of Jesus Christ his Son because of His incredible love for me and all human beings.
I came to discover that I could have a right and eternal relationship with God by faith. I could be saved and changed through trusting Him. This faith would direct my life on earth and allow me share eternal life with God and all other redeemed human beings after this life was over.
That led me to the final critical question:
Number Three: Then what kind of faith saves me?
There are different types of faith. One type of faith is mental—you simply agree with certain facts in your mind. I’d practiced it as a child, but it didn’t change me. I know many people that have “facts” about God without relationship or power. It doesn’t work.
The Bible also said that “even the demons believe and shudder” (James 2:19). But their type of faith doesn’t save them either. They know God exists and they’re scared spitless. But this type of demonic faith doesn’t change their life or fate.
As I studied God’s Word, I came to understand what saving faith is. The New Testament makes it clear that saving faith is a heart-felt trust that invites Jesus to be the Lord of my life. I need to agree with God about my evil heart, confess my sins, turn away from a selfish lifestyle and put my trust in the Savior to change me. He is the new boss—and I am his follower.
Many years ago I embraced God’s grace with saving faith—and became a child and friend of God.
I don’t know if Steve Jobs ever asked or answered these pivotal questions. I pray that he did. I hope that in the latter days of his life—regardless of all the great stuff he had launched and invented—he bowed his heart before God, asked his forgiveness for his sins, and put his faith in Jesus Christ as the Lord of his life.
Because this is also true: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul. What can a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew 16:26). And “one small life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Steve Jobs was right that we all face death. That also means we all will face God. I hope that he did so with saving faith in his Creator and Savior.
If he did, his life and legacy will endure forever. If he did not, then his contributions to our world will be helpful in this life, but not eternal.
If the World Were 100 People
I recently saw a description of the world that caught my attention. It’s called Miniature Earth and it broke down the population of the globe by percentages–as if the world only contained 100 people.
Statisticians tell us that the earth will pass the seven billion mark in October. That’s ten times bigger than the world population stood at the time of America’s founding in 1776.
Seven billion is a staggering number to comprehend. Likening it to 100 people will give us some perspective.
Today I want you to step outside your micro-world and ponder the macro-view of Planet Earth in 2011. I believe this view will tell us a few things about God and how he wants us to pray and act.
What would the world look like if there were only 100 people in it? Here’s the breakdown…
Let’s start with the racial make-up. If we could turn the earth into a town of 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have today, it would contain:
- 61 Asians,
- 12 Europeans,
- 8 North Americans,
- 5 South Americans and Caribbeans,
- 13 Africans,
- and 1 from Oceania.
Imagine this group as a 100 person town. If you walked down the main street, the first thing that would strike you is that nearly six in ten people you meet were Asian. And half of them would be from only two nations on earth: India and China.
I’ve been in China twice in the last six months. It’s an amazing nation. China is smaller geographically than the United States, but it has three times more people–1.3 billion. Looking at it this way, China has over one thousand cities of one million people.
I remember walking down the streets of one prosperous Chinese city–teeming with millions of folks. Only fifty years ago, China was a very poor and backward nation. But today, it is urbanizing quickly and will become the world’s largest economy in a few years. The Chinese are very industrious people.
David Wang of Asian Outreach says that God must really love the Chinese because he made so many of them. He also says that Chinese will be the language of heaven because it will take an eternity to learn it! (with its thirty thousand characters).
Putting humor aside, there’s no doubt that God has big plans for China in the 21st century. One of the greatest prayers we can utter is for China to become free. It is currently a Communist nation whose peoples cannot freely travel. If China became a free republic, the Chinese Church has a goal of tithing their people to world missions. That means adding ten million missionaries to the global harvest force.
There are one million cross-cultural missionaries now serving. Freedom to travel from China would increase global outreach ten-fold! You think there are Chinese restaurants in most places now? Well, if the 100 million person Chinese Church sent one tenth of their population around the world to share the Good News of Jesus, then there might be a Chinese Church on every corner.
Then there’s India. It currently has the world’s second largest population at 1.2 billion. But because of China’s one child policy and India’s high birthrate, it will soon pass China as the world’s most populous country. Fifteen people in our town of 100 are Indian. Due in part to their British heritage, the Gospel is also growing in India and many are coming to Christ and engaging in missions.
I am praying that India and China will form a startegic alliance in the 21st century to reach the world for Christ. There are 30 of them in our town of 100–nearly one third of the total. They have been allowed to multiply for some very important reasons.
They are joined by some very zealous Koreans, Indonesians, Japanese, Mongolians, and other Asia races. Korea is currently the sixth largest missionary sending nation in the world. Mongolia is number one–per capita. It takes only 222 Mongol Christians to send out one cross cultural missionary. By contrast, it takes 20,000 American Christians to send out one missionary.
The rest of the racial percentages are also interesting. In our town of 100, the numbers of Europeans, North and South Americans, and Africans are roughly the same–12, 13, and 13 respectively. Then the islands of Pacific have their one resident.
All these regions of the world have a Christian heritage. Europe’s is dying, but goes back centuries. America’s is sputtering, but still giving missionary leadership to the world. The Church in Latin America and Africa is exploding–the southern hemisphere is the new center of global Christianity. Oceania has been Christian territory for two centuries
So this means that the Africans, Latinos and Islanders will be actively sharing their faith in our town of 100. Americans will support that, and the Europeans may come around. This bodes well for God’s purposes at this strategic time in history.
As a point of information, there are 50 women and 50 men in our town of 100. That’s good. Let’s hope that no other nations follow China’s one child policy that tends to allow more males to live than females.
In our town of 100, 47 live in the urban area and 53 live in the country. This appears quite balanced, but it has changed rapidly over the past fifty years as people have migrated to the cities. One hundred years ago, ninety of our folks would have lived in the rural areas and only 10 would have lived in the city.
It appears that God is bringing people to the cities not only to raise their standard of living, but also to introduce people to him. It is easier to reach people in the cities. This is how Mongolia was evangelized. A century ago, most Mongolians were nomadic and Buddhist. Then the Russian revolution created five major cities where over half the population now live. Since 1980, 100,000 Mongols have become Christians–primarily through the ease of evangelization in the cities.
Pray that the cities of the 21st century would become hot-beds of Christian community. In our town of 100, the 47 people that live in the urban center are key to reaching the other 53 for Christ.
Now let’s turn to the religious make-up of our town of 100. Here’s the breakdown: 33 are Christians (Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Anglicans, and other Christians), 21 Muslims, 13 Hindus, 6 Buddhists, 1 Sikh, 1 Jew, 11 of other religions, 11 non-religious, and 3 atheists.
As you can see, Christians are the largest group in our town at 33 and Muslims are second. In some ways, this explains the global War on Terror which essentially pits Christian civilization (The West) against those who accept the extreme teachings of Islam (jihad). It’s no wonder these issure are in the news every day. Half of our town contains the Christian-Muslim divide.
While it is important that the followers of Christ in our town protect our citizens and work for justice against those who would kill innocent people, it is even more important that our 33 Christians actively share the love and grace of Christ with our 21 Muslim neighbors.
Encouragingly, more Muslims have become Christians in the past two decades than in the previous one thousand years. This appears to be God’s time for a great Muslim harvest.
There are many other religions in our town–and 14 who don’t believe in God. My next book will discuss at length the religions of the world, where they came from, and how only one of them can be true.
I want our “town of 100” to be filled with the light of Christ.
And finally a few facts about economic conditions in our town of 100:
- 20 people own 75% of the wealth of the community.
- 14 are hungry or malnourished,
- 12 can’t read,
- 12 have a computer,
- 8 have an Internet connection.
- and 21 live on $1.25 or less per day.
While these statistics show the true inequities that exist in our town, the main reason for the differences is not because twenty people stole from the others. In our town of 100, the twenty wealthiest people are a product of Christian principles and ideas. Their wealth came from doing things God’s way–taking dominion over the earth and its resources through faith, creativity, free enterprise, godly character, and hard work. The Christian faith produced both Europe and the United States.
It is the Western nations with their Christian heritage that produce 75% of the global GDP. This didn’t happen at gun point or by theft. It was caused by superior ideas via the Christian worldview that created much wealth and prosperity.
Fortunately, the Christian faith and free enterprise are being exported all over the world during the 21st century. Middle classes are springing up in nations like India and China as they embrace these ideals for the first time in their histories.
In our town of 100 we need to reach out to the 14 that are mal-nourished, bring education to the 12 that can’t read, and bring Christ and his truths into the general culture to bring economic development and blessing to all.
This is what Jesus would want if the world were one hundred people.
Social Security IS a Ponzi Scheme. Here’s Why and the Way Out
Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry is rattling the political world by maintaining that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security (SS) is supposed to be the “third rail” of politics–a popular program that you criticize or alter at your own peril.
The pundits are drooling that Perry and the Republicans are in deep trouble if they continue to speak about changing the system that FDR gave us in the 30s to help elderly retirees.
I don’t believe it. I have come to this conclusion about Social Security:
What’s good for me is not good for America.
And if I and many others are not willing to put country before self over this and other vital national interests, then we’re probably finished as a just and prosperous nation.
Here’s why…
I am a Baby Boomer who could start taking Social Security in five years and expect to live another twenty or thirty. I’m also in the lowest tier of income earners in America (due to my choice to be a Christian missionary) who could greatly benefit by the monthly check from the government.
I also know many people who are currently on SS who would like to keep getting their monthly checks from the government. So would I. But I also realize that SS and other large entitlement programs will bankrupt this nation if we bury our heads in the sand, selfishly demand our checks, and don’t have the guts to do something about it.
Gov. Rick Perry has told us the hard truth.
Social Security is a sham–a fraud–and if left unchecked, will fail for everybody.
I don’t know the motivations of those who gave us Social Security. For argument sake, let’s say that the those who launched this social experiment many years ago were well meaning and thought that it would be a good idea to collect money from working Americans during their productive years to give back during retirement.
Fine. People were suffering greatly during the Great Depression and our leaders thought it might be helpful to especially protect the vulnerable elderly.
But good motives can have terrible consequences if ill-designed and delivered. Some of the worst financial consequences come from Ponzi schemes. Think Bernie Madoff–and the thousands who lost their life savings through his mischief.
And Social Security is nothing less than Ponzi-like. Erick Erickson explains:
“Social Security is, for all intents and purposes, a Ponzi scheme. Don’t believe me? Try out the Securities and Exchange Commission definition: ‘A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk.’
“Or how about from Wikipedia? ‘A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.'”
Note the clear definitions. Ponzi schemes are never good investments. They promise great returns in the future, but they spend more money in the present than what they save for the future, and only survive for a time by having new suckers come into the system to pay for the current obligations.
But the operation is a house of cards that over the long-run cannot be sustained and ultimately collapses–especially hurting the last investors to enter the charade.
In terms of SS, think of our children and grandchildren.
There is really only one difference between a Ponzi scheme and Social Security. In a Ponzi scheme fraud, the game always collapses when the criminal runs out of money. In American, the criminals (i.e. the government), don’t run out of money because they can always tax more and print more.
But alas! Those days are over. The American nation can no longer bear increased taxes or more fiat money.
The “game” is essentially over.
Here’s the truth about Social Security:
1. It was begun during a time in which most Americans lived to be about seventy. It was designed to help them with the last five-to-ten years of life. Today, many Americans live into their eighties and nineties and can collect SS for thirty years or more. Thus retiring Americans today will receive three to five times more money than they ever put in! That’s not a great return. It’s robbing future generations.
2. The monies that were collected since the 1930s were never invested or “held.” They were spent every year in the general federal budget. Social Security was never a fund or investment. It is a data-entry IOU. In the early years of the programs, there were plenty of younger workers to pay for retirees. But no longer. Social Security expenditures exceeded the program’s non-interest income in 2010. The $49 billion deficit last year (excluding interest income) and $46 billion projected deficit in 2011 are just the beginning of a half a trillion dollar short-fall by 2021 (CBO estimate). The retirement of the Baby Boom generation creates a desperate situation that will overwhelm the system. Not in the future. Now.
3. We can’t raise taxes to fix the broken system. There are simply not enough younger workers to pay for the older generations–unless they start giving 50-100% of their income to the federal government. This is not an answer. It is slavery and tyranny of the young.
4. The enactment of Social Security had two other negative consequences. First, it astronomically grew the size of government and created dependency for millions of Americans. This was never the American way. Secondly, it began to divide and diminish the American family. For hundreds of years, American families took care of their own–not just the nuclear family, but relatives of all types. If you read the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, you hear of families being responsible for grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins–everybody related to them. This was a good thing that placed the family at the center of society. Government has now taken its place–and no wonder the American family is dying. When you don’t need each other, meaningful relationships cease to exist.
Rick Perry is right. Social Security as it currently exists is a fraudulent program that is a financial cancer on the American economy. We must talk about it and we must makes some changes. I have a few recommendations:
1. Raise the age threshold as people are living longer lives. Continuing to work and be productive is a good thing. Retirement–for twenty or thirty years–is not a right. It’s a privilege and fruit of a well-lived life. Just raising the age to 67 or 70 would save billions of dollars per year.
2. Make Social Security a true savings instrument where the money is “lock-boxed” and invested in financial markets to multiply a return. This is the way that it always should have operated. The government must collect SS money, not spend it on other things, and invest it for future payments. And older folks should receive at retirement only what they’ve contributed and the interest it has earned–not five times what they put in.
3. If younger generations don’t want to invest in the government system, they can take their SS monies and invest them personally in other private instruments. If government cannot be competitive, then it shouldn’t be allowed to be in the retirement business at all. More choices will mean better returns.
4. Americans should be encouraged once again to be the primary providers for their own families. I am personally arranging my future finances around taking care of my own. There’s nothing wrong with children caring for their parents and grandparents in their later years–and even living together as a result of that commitment. This would strengthen and renew the American family. God knows this is one of our greatest needs as a society.
To make these ideas and other good reforms come to pass, we need to be dirt honest about the giant Ponzi scheme called Social Security and be willing to do the right thing–even at our own expense. Here’s the principle to which we must commit:
What’s good for me isn’t necessarily good for America.
Translation: The Ponzi-like Social Security check that I’d love to receive from age 65 to 90 is bad policy for my nation. I won’t take it. It’s better to “ask not what my country can do for me, but rather ask what I can do for my country” (John F. Kennedy.)
That means I need to work a little harder and longer, give up the money I don’t deserve, take responsibility for my extended family, and work to reform the system for future generations.
If we do, they will rise up in the future and praise us.