The whole concept of a résumé is very interesting. First of all, trying to find out how to type the e with an accent over it is very difficult. People work very hard to make an impressive résumé. They format it with different tricks in word processing programs to make sure that all the columns and bullet points are uniform, and that there is no wasted space on the page. You know, to look professional, as if looking professional can somehow overshadows the lack of content and experience in the actual document. Some people, in an effort to fill their résumé with relevant experience jam pack their lives with internships and temporary jobs, or while they are still in school, with loads of extracurricular activities. They’ll spend time at a job they hate or work of an organization they don’t believe in, just so they can fill their résumé with noteworthy accomplishments.
Equally important is the reference list. The list of people you know will talk you up as the perfect worker for the company. You put people who like you and want to see you succeed. You’ve built up relationships with these people at various encounters in life, and you trust them to make you look good.
Résumés are important when applying for jobs. But employers are smart people. They know all the formatting tricks people use, see through the flowery descriptive language and adjectives, and they get suspicious when they see you can only keep a job for 1 year, or if you’ve stretched yourself thin with all the extra things you do. When you submit a résumé online, a lot of times, the formatting goes out the window after you copy and paste the text into a box that only allows so many characters, or email it to a recruiter, and their word processer is different than yours so that when its printed out, it no longer fits neatly and perfectly on one sheet of paper. What’s more important than the piece of paper is the interview, where another human being can analyze and see the person who is hiding behind the piece of paper.
All Christians have a Christian résumé, for good or bad. Its there whether we like it or not. How we fill it and format it is up to us. We highlight different aspects of our lives in it. How long we’ve been leading a Bible study, how much we give on Sundays, how often we volunteer our time at charitable organizations and so forth. On paper, we can appear to have the perfect résumé. Now these things are important, but how did they get on the page?
Did they appear because they flowed naturally from our lives? Did we see the beauty of what Christ did on the cross, and in response to that, our lives appeared radically changed due to a holy calling? Or did we see Christ on the cross and decide that wasn’t good enough, and that we must somehow add to it, and that we must earn God’s approval?
Do we perform so that we might earn God’s approval, or because we know that we already have God’s approval?
The following comes from Hebrews 10: 1-4
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Good works can become the modern day blood of bulls and goats in our Gentile culture. God knows our true hearts, our true intentions.
I’ve been to handful of job interviews in my day, and I am by no means an expert. I have noticed though, that during an interview, the employer will quickly glance at my résumé, and then put it back in the folder, and then proceed to grill me with questions. That document I worked so hard on for several hours to make it look just right is lost within an HR file and will be placed back among several hundred others just like it.
God looks straight at our hearts, or more accurately, right through our hearts.
“And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” Hebrews 4:13.
So are you working to fill your résumé with a bunch of accomplishments, trying to spice it up with a fancy header? Or do you come before God leaving your résumé at home. You have one, and it’s full of great noteworthy things, but you know it won’t impress. Instead you come simply with a reference list that only lists Christ? (Cheesy, yes I know)
But seriously, if you are standing before God, or actually, let’s change the audience. Hopefully if you’re reading this you would know how to respond to God. If you are talking to a friend who asks you what it means to be a Christian, what would you point to? Your church attendance, your upright code of morals? Or will you acknowledge your sin and admit that you are helpless apart from Jesus? Will you tout your super Christian piece of paper, or use the reference list?
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