There is a God of this universe. He made all things visible and invisible. He is not part of his creation, because he is uncreated and uncaused. We are talking about a God so powerful, that he spoke the star-filled galaxies into existence and order, and that, from nothing. He took no classes and gathered no materials to bring space, time, and matter into functioning order. However, a terrible thing has happened. This little creature thing, man, has insanely supposed that he is fit to determine his doings.

Opportunities. Everyone is looking for them. We travel to far-off places for an opportunity to see that thing or spectacle. We line up at stores in the dark around Thanksgiving for them. We make sacrifices to grab opportunities.

Have you ever had a great opportunity presented to you, only to foolishly turn it down?

Noland Bushnell had a knack for gadgets and electronics. He began sharpening his skills as manager of the games at an amusement park. After getting a degree in electrical engineering, he began tinkering around more with cutting edge electronics.

In the sixties, he was one of the privileged computer science students who played Spacewar on mainframe computers. He had this idea that you could play interactive games on a TV-type monitor. Bushnell tinkered around some more. Then, in 1972 he founded a company called Atari.

They soon put out one of the first video games ever called Pong. It became an immediate success. They then decided to invent a machine to make a home version of Pong. The Atari 2600 was born and so was the home gaming market.

In the meantime, Bushnell became acquainted with a twenty-year old chap who was also tinkering around with electronics in the Bay Area. His name was Steve Jobs. Along with Jobs, a fellow named Steve Wozniak, was working with Bushnell, also fiddling with a home computer idea. Jobs and Bushnell had a few dealings. But, in 1976 they parted ways, and Job and Wozniak continued to dabble around in Jobs’ garage. As Jobs’ project made some progress, he then offered Bushnell some help with the gaming system.

And then, Jobs approached Bushnell with an opportunity. Bushnell could own one-third of this new company, Apple, for fifty-thousand dollars. He turned it down. Bushnell recalls the proposal: “Steve asked me if I would put fifty-thousand dollars in and he would give me a third of the company. I was so smart, I said no. It’s kind of fun to think about that, when I’m not crying.”

Atari is no longer quite the name that it once was. Apple Inc., however, is now the first public company ever to reach a worth of one trillion dollars. Bushnell would have owned one-third of the company.

Missed opportunities.

Every day is a day of great opportunity. Every waking hour before our death and prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ is an opportunity. It is an opportunity far more valuable than what Noland Bushnell would have had in one-third ownership of Apple.

There is a God of this universe. He made all things visible and invisible. He is not part of his creation, because he is uncreated and uncaused. We are talking about a God so powerful, that he spoke the star-filled galaxies into existence and order, and that, from nothing. He took no classes and gathered no materials to bring space, time, and matter into functioning order.

However, a terrible thing has happened. This little creature thing, man, has insanely supposed that he is fit to determine his doings. He seeks independence from God, though this man is stuck on one little planet, in one little solar system, in one little galaxy, in a universe of about two trillion other galaxies. There he is on this planet. If God were to slightly tip or change the rotation of this little planet, this puny man thing would disintegrate instantly into dust. And yet, man esteems himself over God. Without a moment of fumbling, God monitors and upholds things like the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the observable universe. Up until a century or so ago, man didn’t even know what a star was. And there he is, telling God how it is. It’s the tragi-comedy of all tragicomedies; a belly-bursting, tear-jerking, awkward phenomena of the most radical kind.

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