Read an interesting post (warning, rough language) about Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com. Bezos set the tech and consumer world on fire about a month ago when he announced the full line of Kindles Amazon was going to be releasing. Specifically, the Kindle Fire astounded everyone, not only in what the product was but the very low price-point they were setting it at. In many posts I read about his presentation many were raving that Bezos was the “new Steve Jobs.”
Gizmodo’s article (linked above) explores how Bezos seems to be freakishly smart. The writer almost sounds in awe of him.
As a younger man, I’m pretty sure my first reaction to reading such an article would have been, “Hey, I can be that smart! I can be that visionary!” My reaction today, though, was a much more relieved, “Thank God he is that smart – I definitely wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.” Why, you might ask?
I don’t need to be the smartest. In fact, getting a few more years under my belt has helped me understand that, really, I’m not the smartest guy. I’m smarter than many, more clever than others, but there are plenty of guys out there that can put me to shame. So what’s my problem, did I lose my ambition? Did I lose my drive to be the best?
No, I had a realization of a different sorts. The reality of it had been working through my soul for about five years now, but it wasn’t until the last year that I started picking up on it in my conscious mind. The realization? Simply this: God isn’t using me for my smarts or my genius, he’s using me and working in and through me because of my surrender to him.
I was reading my kids a story from “The Jesus Storybook Bible” tonight and I love this line in it:
Because the people God uses don’t have to know a lot of things, or have a lot of things – they just have to need him a lot. (p. 210)
And that’s where I am now. It’s taken me almost thirty years to even begin to grasp how much I need God. How much I need Christ. Therein lies my success as a man. And therein lies the seed of greatness. Not a greatness that will get me written up in an article that thousands/millions will read. Greatness that will win me esteem from a single One. I’m striving for seven words that will have no purpose if a man utters them, but will affirm my entire purpose if they are said by God, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
If I can allow my need for Christ to permeate all that I am, then whatever I do, wherever God calls me, I will be able to live the Gospel and my life will be on that points to God and fails to draw attention to myself.
