Introduction
The Wikipedia.org online encyclopedia defines a resume as a document containing a summary or list of relevant work experience and education, usually for obtaining an interview when seeking employment. A resume is often the first item a potential employer encounters regarding a job applicant, so great importance is attached to it. A resume is a biography of a person’s professional life, where they worked, lived, and describes who that person is. Your resume is an important tool that communicates everything about you to a potential employer. When he does the job right, he wins the interview. A resume not only provides a potential employer with the job applicant’s employment history, when constructed and well written, it conveys loud and clear that the individual has the necessary credentials to succeed in the desired position or career. A good resume works to build credibility through experience gained, while illustrating professional growth over time. A resume is not a document that is created once and never updated. As you gain new experience and learning, update your resume regularly by always keeping it up to date.
God communicates his role
The Bible declares in Psalm 32:8;
I will instruct you and teach you the path in which you should walk; I will give you advice and watch over you. (New International Version – VIN)
In this verse of scripture, God declares the things he will do in our lives, if we let him. He declares that He will teach us; this implies that sometimes He will provide direction and expect us to follow Him, without question. He will teach us, which means that he will sometimes help us understand the meaning of his decisions and actions in our lives. That assures us that He will give us godly wisdom. He declares that He will advise us. This implies that He understands that sometimes we will go out alone, but He will be there to give us advice when we ask for it. Finally, he declares that he will watch over us. God has your back. We have nothing to fear because Almighty God is watching over us. God has convincingly and clearly communicated the role and responsibilities he desires in our lives. I wish there was a way to pause and reflect on how God fulfills his promises in our lives, especially when we face difficult situations.
God’s curriculum in your life
Sometimes when we face challenges in this life and the outcome seems uncertain or not what we expected, doubt arises. Doubt closely accompanies fear and anxiety. Together they bring despair into our lives and cause our faith in God to fail. Have you ever felt like the promises kept to Abraham, Elijah, Job, and Jeremiah were great for them in their time, but don’t seem to translate easily to your situation? I wish there was a simple way to reflect on how God fulfilled his promises in my life, not for David and Solomon, not for Paul and Timothy, but for me. God has led me to a simple way to reflect on his presence in my life; I would like to share with you. Let me introduce you to God’s curriculum in your life. God’s curriculum in your life is a document that you create; contains a chronological summary or list of relevant experiences in his life through which God was working to instruct, teach, counsel, and watch over you. The sole purpose of developing God’s curriculum in your life is to strengthen his faith in Him. Documenting God’s curriculum in your life is an act of praise and worship as it shows God that you have recognized his goodness and mercy. to you. Based on my own experience and those of others I have encountered over the years, creating and maintaining a summary of God’s presence in your life builds your faith in Him through experience, while illustrating their Christian growth over time. In the Book of Psalms, David wrote God’s curriculum on his life. The Psalms show us how God instructed, taught, counseled, and cared for David throughout his life, while illustrating his Christian growth and maturity over time.
The origin of God’s curriculum in my life
In the summer of 2002, I was presented with the opportunity to write an article for a widely distributed Christian monthly magazine. The editor-in-chief requested that the article offer career advice, as several of his readers had experienced recent job losses. The article I wrote was titled “Coping with Job Loss as a Christian.” Several weeks after that edition went to print, I received a call from a good friend who lived in Rochester, New York. He reflected on how I would write an article on coping with job loss, never having experienced unemployment in my 25-year career. I assured him that it was all divine inspiration that prompted that article. A couple of months after that conversation and for the first time in twenty-five years, I found myself unemployed. I was also facing a scheduled foreclosure on the newly built home. The mortgage broker gave me fifteen days to find a new job or risk losing my house. He was facing a difficult financial challenge and my spirit was broken. It seems as if all the inspiration he had experienced two months earlier had given way to perspiration as he was now dealing with the job loss. It suddenly became very clear to me why God had put that job loss article in my mind two months before; It wasn’t just for the readers of that Christian magazine, but he looked into my future and saw that I would need all the advice he had put into that article.
During my job search, as I dusted off my professional resume and began updating it, I found myself asking God a few questions. Why now, Sir, and why so close to the closing date of the mortgage? Was this a sign that we should drop the deal? Did he want us to abandon our recent move to Virginia and move back to Rochester, New York? And so on… It was during my meditation one morning that I began to look back on my life since I came to the United States, from my early days in college, then through graduate school, the jobs I had and the places I traveled to. . I began to review in my mind how God had been working in my life through the good times and the hard times, even up to the present situation. I began to praise the Lord for his goodness to me in the past and his leadership in the current situation. This lifted my spirits. The Holy Spirit gave me 2 Chronicles 20:1-29 as my word of encouragement for that situation.
So it hit me like a rock, just as I had spent time documenting my professional accomplishments on my resume to impress a potential employer, why not spend time documenting God’s accomplishments in my life? I documented, in chronological order, highlights of God’s instruction, teaching, counsel, and oversight from as long as I can remember to the present. I created God’s resume in my life. When I was done, I felt like I had more to praise than to worry about. The process of creating God’s curriculum in my life strengthened my faith in Him and solidified my resolve to trust in His leadership during that crisis. I have since updated God’s resume in my life to include how he led a recruiter to me and how he oversaw the process that resulted in us closing on the new home on schedule.
Some Summary Guidelines
There are guidelines at CareerJournal.com for professional resumes that apply to creating and maintaining God’s resume in your life. Remember, the following are just guidelines and not commandments. Some people feel more comfortable using their personal journal to capture the highlights of God’s leadership manifesting in their lives. These are your experiences with God, so use whatever you feel comfortable with, even if it’s your PDA or BlackberryTM. Here are some guidelines to help you create God’s resume in your life.
1. Define a goal for the resume: be specific and concise. Example: “To increase my faith in God by reviewing his goodness and gratitude in my life.”
2. Use a chronological format for the resume. Begin with the most recent experience or situation in which God instructed, taught, counseled, or protected you. To the best of your recollection, make a note of the date of the event or experience.
3. Focus on God’s accomplishments in your life. Ask yourself, “How did I recognize God instructing, teaching, counseling, or protecting me during the experience or situation?” and “What did He do in my life that I want other people to know for encouragement?”
4. Use descriptive verbs. Describe your experiences using sentences that contain an action word in the past tense. Example: “Two months ago, God led me to write an article on coping with job loss for others to read. When I lost my job, I was able to use those same guidelines.”
5. Keep your resume up to date. Update God’s resume in your life with new experiences and situations as they occur. As you review them, you will begin to recognize that you have experienced Christian growth over time.
6. Don’t focus only on the dramatic events in your life. Be aware of small events too, as God works in mysterious ways, the wonders of him to perform.
Don’t limit yourself to a specific number of pages as God began working in your life from the moment you took your first breath; in fact, He started that process. He didn’t start working in your life only after you became a Christian; God was working all along to bring you to Him and He doesn’t stop working in your life when you find out. God’s curriculum in your life stops expanding when you die, but even then, your experiences can be beneficial to others. If you choose to share it with others, God’s curriculum in your life could be passed down through the generations in your family. However, it may be so personal to you that you choose not to share it. Remember, this is all between you and God.
A sample of the curriculum of God in my life
The best way to help you create God’s resume in your life is to share with you an excerpt from God’s resume in mine. You can view an excerpt from God in My Life’s resume on the website listed below.