He was only 56 years of age when he died. His story is fascinating, an adopted son of working class parents who many rank among the top three business leaders of 20th century America. Steve Jobs brought us Apple computers, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. Apple was worth around $40 billion (yes, with a “b”) when he died last month. At the age of 12, Jobs rejected the Christianity of his parents and throughout his life practiced a spirituality based on Zen Buddhism.
Most striking about the man was his single-minded focus which showed itself as “I love me and my ideas more than anything or anyone.” Sometimes his selfishness was silly. He followed strict vegetarian diets which he thought made personal hygiene unimportant. For years, his body odor was bad enough to make others avoid him, yet he refused to acknowledge it! Often his self-centeredness was tragic. He fathered a daughter that he ignored for the first 10 years of her life because, against all evidence, he convinced himself he was not her father. He kept old partners from sharing his amazing wealth for no reason other than he thought they didn’t deserve it. Friends developed a name for Jobs’ thinking – “reality distortion field.”
His self-confidence allowed him to achieve amazing things while using and abusing other people. He had no time for philanthropy, ignored his family most of the time, and treated even long-time partners with disdain. He died admired for his success but largely unloved by the thousands of ordinary people he treated with such contempt over the last 35 years.
As I read Steve Jobs (Simon and Schuster, Isaacson, 2011) this week, I questioned repeatedly how many of us would willingly choose the kind of personal failure he lived if that choice allowed us to enjoy the kind of professional success he created? There is no doubt that Jobs’ narcissism was what caused him to discard friends and relationships to pursue his dreams that brought us the gadgets that billions of us enjoy. Was the result worth the cost? Don’t be too quick to answer.
The words of Christ are familiar to us. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:24-26, NIV) We claim that this is our basic value, that this is what we believe. But, what do our daily choices say? Do our intuitive decisions align with our claim to be His disciples? Imagine for a moment that Steve Jobs had held onto the Christian faith of his childhood and become an outstanding, but obscure teacher of poor, urban students? His face would never have graced the cover of Time, his biography would have never been written. Is that kind of life a “success”? Rationally, most Christians would have to say “yes.” At a deeper level, I am quite sure many also feel some level of ambivalence. Our culture deeply admires guys like Steve Jobs and we are not immune to its influence.
Two roads are in front of us today. Let this word from the Word go deep. With your eyes enlightened by the Holy Spirit, ponder your life choices. Which road are you, in fact, choosing in spite of what you claim to believe? “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it." (Matthew 7:13-14, NLT)
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