Have you ever noticed how a photograph taken from an unusual angle or with a strange lens can cause you to see a subject in a whole new light? Well, I hope a recent bit of tech news might do that for you today.
A Vietnamese programmer wrote a phone app that was a huge success. “Flappy Birds” has been downloaded more than 50 million times, and news reports that I read claimed it was generating $50,000 a day in advertising revenue! Whether all that money came to Nguyen Ha Dong or not, I don’t know. But surely he had to be benefiting handsomely from its success. And yet, last Saturday, Nguyen announced that he was pulling the game out of the App Store. It would no longer be available.
Who does that? Why would anyone do that? According to one article, Nguyen said, “I can call ‘Flappy Bird’ is a success of mine. But it also ruins my simple life. So now I hate it.'”
I can admire someone like that. He is willing to kill the golden goose because he understands the actual reason for making things and for work. It is not just to make as much money as possible. It is to bless our life and the lives of others.
But the story doesn’t end there.
When the news was announced that the game would no longer be available, people who already owned the game (50 million of them) realized that they had something which no one else could get. Suddenly the simple (and actually rather dumb looking, if you ask me) bit of code on their phone was more valuable than it had been a day before. Go to eBay and you can now find people selling their cellular phones that have this app installed. And one of these auctions, as of this morning, was up to 68 bids and $90,955.00!!!
We are stunned that anyone’s view of reality could be so distorted that they would be unable to see the real value of a tiny video game. How could anybody be so blind?!
But we do it all the time, don’t we? Like a person standing too close to a mirror, or a person who’s vision is distorted, focused obsessively on one tiny thing, like a person whose whole world view is only what he can see through a keyhole, we become outraged at tiny offenses. A rude action in traffic leads to our shouting and cursing – something we would never otherwise do. A small offense that the other person isn’t even aware of causes us to fret and stew over our irritation all day – or even for several days. Our desire for some object, or some person, or some experience cause us to value the gifts God has given us less. We don’t see the miracle of our family, we totally forget about the privilege of our occupation, we forget all about what God has done for us because all we can think about is the life we want.
Before you mock those who are dumb enough to bid $90,000 for a goofy video game (like I did when I read about it), take a closer look at yourself. Are you seeing things in their proper proportion in your own life?
HERE is what is greatest and most important: that God, your heavenly Father, has a purpose and plan for you. That he created you on purpose. You are no accident. That he is fully aware of your sins and failures and inadequacies. And that he deliberately, and with complete willingness, gave up his own son to die in your place, so that you could be restored to him.
That is who you are. That’s who you are, whether you have a nice car or not. Whether anybody else admires you or not. Whether you lose that 2o pounds or not. Whether you ever get the recognition you crave or not. Whether you find your “soulmate” or not.
Step back from whatever it is that obsesses you, and recognize that it is not as large as you think. It’s not worth $90,955.00.
But you are. In fact, you are worth much, much more than that, because God is obsessed with you.