Death — and the Death of Steve Jobs


I’m typing this blog on my MacBook Pro. I can think Steve Jobs for that. He changed all our lives and really was an Edison for our times.

Today I read the now-famous 2005 graduation address he gave at Stanford University in California. What he said that day will “preach,” as one of my professors used to put it.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it…. When I was 17, I read a quote that said 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.

Without making any comment on Jobs’ life or death, I would just add that the big choices of life should always include those of eternal value. It’s possible to gain the whole world but lose your own soul. We must be about our Father’s business so we can finish the work He gave us to do. We must live with eternity in view. In the words of the famous old couplet by Anonymous:

This one life will soon be past;

Only what’s done for Christ will last.