Watch the video!

chances to hear richard



PC Logic

Pardon my deep, verbose interjection. I know this post seems about 5 years too late, but I am feeling quite pensive and need to brain dump... If you know me, you will see this as my need to analyze everything... well?

As a former Windows PC user (I am still one via Parallels on my MacBook), I recently began to identify the roots of MY previous Mac hatred. I do not suggest that these are the roots of other Mac-haters—but they rang true for me. When I was a PC user (6+ years ago), I was the answer man. Problems came—I fixed them. Confusing and troubling things took place—I was the one they called. Build a network, or upgrade a video card—I was your man. I had adapted my logic to flow with PC logic—stair-stepped, regimented, process-based logic. I had the “If this, then that” flow chart embedded in my brain. The longer I used PC’s the more I knew advanced levels of PC logic that I used to impress others and prove my (perceived) superior intellect.

I realize now that I had developed a large amount of my self worth from the problem solving that came as a result of my PC mastery. What is fascinating, is that now that I use Mac, I do not ever get those calls. I am not the “go-to” guy anymore. I cannot begin to describe how liberated I am from that grind—the grind that used to define my self worth. As a Mac user, the problem solving I do and the building I do is in using the computer as a tool and mastering the end result. The tool has become a solid instrument, like a vice grip in my hand. PC used to be the thing I worked "on". Mac is what I work "with". This helps me to understand the PC IT person dilemma. When no one needs to fix the computer, how am I still important? 

Now if you read that as a shot aimed at PC IT people, please rethink. What made me write this is that I (for some random reason) was thinking about PC's and realized how much of my previous self worth came from my knowledge of them. It is a shot at how we find our value in anything that is subject to change.

Have you ever placed your value in something that was changing on you? Do you know the feeling of having your job be replaced by a computer, or of your industry becoming obsolete—or maybe—just maybe—of being a pastor who sees his church dwindling while all these "new" churches are now thriving in your community. There is only one thing that we can find our value in that does not change. It is in Christ alone—not in what we do and not in how we do it. He will never be obsolete. He alone makes us valuable. All the jobs might be moved offshore to another country, the worship style you lead might be replaced, but He will never leave you and thus you will never lose your value.

Our true value is in the person He has made us. How we use that should always be a work in progress. And for all the Mac-lovers out there—one day, even Apple will be outsmarted and outsimplified.

p.s. Funny thing. While I was typing this, my Mac crashed. True story. Go figure.

Published on Thursday, April 8, 2010 @ 6:02 PM CDT
10 comments

< view older posts