Something to keep in mind over the next few weeks while we tackle the “No Matter What” series at The Gathering: until you die, it’s never too late.  It’s not too late to love again, try again, learn again, serve again, pray again.  There is absolutely nothing that can keep you from doing what Proverbs 24:16 says righteous people do.  You can get up and go after it again.

Exhibit A?  Steve Jobs, who after starting Apple in his parents garage at the age of 21, became a millionaire in 2 years and an icon in 9 before being fired from the very company he started!  That’s right, the company that wouldn’t have existed without him pulled a surprise coupe (is there any other kind?) and ousted him.  The revealing truth is that no one was really that sad to see him go.  He was tough, focused, a visionary, and a jerk. He would literally fire idle employees on the spot if he was having a bad day, and so you’d have to wonder how a man like that would respond to termination at what seemed to be the height of his career.  He was, in his own words, “a very public failure.”

And yet, instead of pouting, whining, or quitting, he chose to see the firing as a chance to return to what mattered most.  He took a year and thought about what that was, and realized that his passions hadn’t changed even if his workplace had, and so he started another company that was eventually bought by Apple, paving the way for him to regain the position he’d been fired from.  He also started a new film company called “Pixar” which has gone on to produce blockbusters like Finding Nemo and the Toy Story movies. And it all happened because he didn’t give up…

NO MATTER WHAT.

Jobs returned to Apple just as focused, but not quite as harsh, and he led the company back to the world-changing company that we know it is today.  We live in a world where what was an idea in his mind is an everyday after-thought in ours: iPods, iPhones, and iPads are used routinely during the day by millions of people worldwide, and each one of these products came after Jobs was fired.  That one event was, as Jobs would later say, the best thing that ever happened to him.

Here is an excerpt from a commencement speech that Steve Jobs delivered at Stanford University in 2005:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter into one of the most creative periods of my life,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.”

With all due respect to Jobs, I would say it it all starts with finding WHO you love and Who loves you. His name is Jesus, and when you follow Him, He will always lead you to the right places, even if you fall every now and then on the way there.