I was invited to give this devotional address in early February. That's when I'm right in the thick of writing letters of recommendation for students. To become registered dietitians, students must complete an accredited post-graduate dietetic internship and take a national registration exam. Internships are very competitive, and while every part of the internship application process is important, the letters of recommendation really do carry weight in the selection process.
Anyway, I had written about 20 recommendations at the time I received the invitation. That afternoon I told a colleague I had been asked to give a devotional address in Rexburg and joked, "Maybe I could just read some of my recommendations-they're pretty good!"
Though I was kidding, I started thinking about recommendations. We use the term recommend all the time. I recommend this restaurant, he recommends that movie, your doctor recommends that you get more sleep. Of more importance, we seek a temple recommend.
As students, all of you probably have sought (or will soon seek) a recommendation from a professor for an internship of some sort, graduate school, a scholarship, or a job. In an average year, I write over 30 recommendations for dietetic internships, five for graduate school, six to eight for scholarships, and I probably respond to at least eight telephone inquiries for job recommendations. Why? Why all those recommendations? Do they really have any influence on the outcome?
Well, originating in the 14th century, the word 'recommend' means "to praise, to present as worthy."[1] So when someone requires a recommendation, he or she is assuming two things. One, that the person making the recommendation knows something about the applicant and, two, that the recommender will be honest in the assessment. Thus, if someone is worthy of a positive recommendation, the recipient may be influenced to offer the job, slot, or scholarship to the applicant.
Because it's easy for almost anyone to write a lot of glowing remarks about someone, most places specify what areas they want addressed in the letter. Or there may be a rating form in addition to comments. Let me show you what gets assessed in the recommendation for a dietetic internship-virtually all 250 internship programs use this form. The instructions say, "Please rate the applicant on the qualities you feel you can judge on the grid below" and the rating scale is: outstanding, more than satisfactory, satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory.
The first three items that are assessed have to do with application of knowledge-what the student knows:
- Nutrition Content
- Medical Nutrition Therapy
- Foodservice Management
The final item is also related to the field:
- Overall potential as a dietitian
You can mentally change those terms to something related to whatever you're studying to make this recommendation fit your circumstances. Even though this is the list for the dietetic internship, I guarantee that the rest of the items would apply to you regardless of your area of study. That's because all of the rest of the items, 14 of them, address a few skills and a lot of personal characteristics, what the student is:
- Analytical Skills/Problem Solving
- Conceptual Skills
- Communication Skills- both oral and written
- Interpersonal Skills-with peers/coworkers and with teachers/supervisors
- Leadership Potential
- Initiative/Motivation
- Punctuality
- Adaptability
- Reaction to Stress
- Perseverance
- Creativity
- Organizational Skills
- Works Independently
- Responsibility/Maturity
Does it surprise you that the recommendation form focuses so little on what students know and so much on what students are? It's practically a given that a college graduate knows something about his or her major. Where the real value of the recommendation comes in is having someone share insights about what the person is like, how he or she interacts with others, how the applicant can apply knowledge.
Before I go on, here is my one hint to you about obtaining recommendations from professors-let them get to know you. I don't mean you have to become chums, but if all you do is show up in class and turn in your assignments it's really hard to say anything very meaningful about you. Participate in discussions, ask questions, and drop by the office for clarification when you need it. Help your professor see you as more than a body in the classroom. That will not only be helpful to him or her when writing a recommendation for you; I can almost guarantee you'll enjoy the class more, as well.
When completing the internship recommendation form (remember, I'm doing one for at least 30 students a year), I ask myself, "What evidence have I seen that Student X has a high degree of_____?" And then I consider each item. If there is a lot of evidence, I rate the student Outstanding or More than Satisfactory; if not, the rating is lower. Then I can elaborate on or illustrate the student's qualities in the comments section of each form. While many, if not most, of these characteristics are internal, they have to be manifest in behavior, or I can't really assess them. Whether thinking about your spiritual or secular life, actions, the "do," and character, the "be," must be related.
Elder Lynn G. Robbins addressed the issue of "to be" versus "to do" in his April, 2011 General Conference address. He said:
"To be and to do are inseparable. As interdependent doctrines they reinforce and promote each other. . . . To do without to be is hypocrisy, or feigning to be what one is not-a pretender. . . . Conversely, to be without to do is void. . . Be without do really isn't being-it is self-deception, believing oneself to be good merely because one's intentions are good. . . . Do without be-hypocrisy-portrays a false image to others, while be without do portrays a false image to oneself."[2]
The congruence of being and doing is important in obtaining a good recommendation in this life, but it's absolutely critical for obtaining the only recommendation that really matters. As important as the opinion of a professor or work supervisor is relative to receiving a scholarship or award, getting into graduate school, or landing a job, there is one whose opinion matters above all others. Our Savior is our advocate with the Father,[3] and His assessment of us has more value than any earthly opinion or endorsement. Our supreme goal should be to be worthy of this recommendation found in Matthew, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."[4]
While it's possible you could fool a professor or supervisor with lots of "do" and very little "be," there can be no pretense with the Savior-He knows us intimately and understands us completely. If He had a recommendation form, it would probably have only one item: How well did you become like Christ? In order to assess that, the Savior would consider our degree of faith, hope, and charity; He would determine how well we kept the commandments, how diligently we served others, how easily we could be entreated, how we responded to correction and counsel, and how much we focused our attention on Him.
There are myriad other factors that go into becoming Christ-like, but rather than try to list them all, I'd like to suggest four things that can help us develop the characteristics we need to be worthy of His recommendation. They are closely related to each other and they all happen to start with the letter P. I'll call them the Four Ps.
The first P is a Sense of Purpose. To paraphrase the Cheshire Cat: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."[5] Well, not just any road will take us to the Celestial Kingdom. In fact, Nephi says it's a "strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life."[6] We have to know where we want to go to get on and stay on the correct path.
One of the great blessings we have as a result of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we do know about our eternal nature; we know we are literal spirit children of our Heavenly Father; we know why this earth was created; and we know God's purpose-you can all quote Moses 1:39, "For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."
You've probably heard the story about the three bricklayers. When asked what he was doing, the first replied, "I'm laying brick." The observer moved on to the next man and asked the same question. He replied, "I'm earning a living." When asked what he was doing, the third man answered, "I'm building a cathedral to my God." Now, when the weather turned wet and cold or the task became more challenging, which bricklayer do you think continued to do his best? Having a sense of purpose, an accurate sense of purpose, is fundamental to making the best decisions and staying the course, no matter how difficult it becomes.
Knowing that we are children of Deity with the divine potential to both assist in His work and glory by committing ourselves to lifting others and to become as He is ought to give us some staying power when the strait and narrow path gets steeper, rockier, and more obscure than we might like. Lack of this knowledge is the source of so much misery in the world. With no sense of who they are and what they can become, many of Father's children make choices to their eternal detriment. They choose the easy but dishonest way to face problems, they fail to forgive, they discount the importance of chastity, and they live for today without really understanding the potential riches of tomorrow. Holding firm to our eternal purpose protects us from such profligacy.
Within the broad eternal purpose, we develop a sense of our own purpose as we receive and study our patriarchal blessings. My father was a patriarch in two locations; for about ten years in Kansas City, Missouri, and another ten years in American Fork, Utah. In that time he gave 1167 patriarchal blessings. I had the privilege of transcribing the blessings for about the first year he was a patriarch and then again for the last ten years. One of the many things I learned is how clearly Heavenly Father knows us as individuals. Each blessing contained unique descriptions of gifts, unique cautions, and unique promises. I also learned that if we viewed each other from Heavenly Father's perspective, we'd be slower to judge and quicker to love. We look pretty amazing to our Creator because He's not fooled by earthly barriers to our potential.
In addition to finding guidance from our patriarchal blessings, a question we must ask ourselves often is, "How can I best fulfill God's purpose for me?" Answers to that question lead us to gain a sense of our purpose as we faithfully fulfill callings in our wards and stakes, as we pursue schooling, career, and other options that allow us to serve our fellowmen, and as we love and serve those wonderful people called family members.
The next P is the Ability to Plan. Planning is how we affect the future rather than just being affected by it. In order for planning to have any significant meaning, we need to keep our purpose in mind. In fact, the reason for planning is to determine the courses of action that will help us achieve our purpose. Most organizations, whether they are for-profit businesses or not-for-profit entities, have a mission statement--in other words, their purpose. It is stressed at new employee orientations, posted in the lobby, and printed in the annual report. That mission or purpose is expected to stay constant for many years and is intended to guide the choice of activities in which the organization engages. A great deal of time is then spent planning goals and strategies by which the organization can both support its mission and grow and progress for the next several years. That business model can be adapted nicely to our personal model.
When I was a sophomore in college, Elder Sterling W. Sill was the speaker at a stake conference. He said something that has remained with me and continues to influence me. To the best of my memory, he said, "In nothing does man come closer to God-like activity than in planning." Think about what that means. Think about the nature of divine planning. In Moses 3:5 we learn, "For I, the Lord God, created all things . . . . spiritually before they were naturally upon the face of the earth." I picture that as a form of planning. And don't we refer to our reason for being on the earth as the Plan of Salvation? In Moses 6:62 the Father states, "I say unto you: This is the plan of salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only Begotten."
The plans we make for ourselves reflect our use of agency. In the broadest sense, we plan to either keep the commandments or not. We plan to either be righteous or not, to be good or evil. I frankly can't imagine anyone in this room planning to be anything other than a good, righteous, keeper of commandments. Those are broad plans. Our planning then needs to include some specific strategies to help us. Examples of specific plans might be our plans for how and when we study the scriptures, how we plan to organize our study, social, and personal time, how we plan to respond to a particular temptation, and how we plan to incorporate loving acts of service into our lives.
You've probably all used a day planner of some sort to help you keep track of your assignments, exams, and other important dates. Some people become so enamored with planning their time that they lose all flexibility. As important as planning is, remember that its purpose is to help you fulfill your purpose. Sometimes plans have to change or be postponed so we can attend to important things we simply didn't plan on. Over-programming gives planning a bad name!
One other note about planning: be sure to leave room in your plan for serendipity. Serendipity is finding unexpected things of value. To be honest, I wasn't smart enough to plan for many of the wonderful things that have happened to me in my life. But I did have plans that kept me on the right road and put me in positions to recognize unexpected but good paths to try. If your plans keep you headed in the right direction, it's unlikely that you'll make any big mistakes.
A third P is Maintaining Perspective. In a physical sense, you know that how an object appears to you depends on where you are when you look at. One of my favorite natural features in Utah County is Mount Timpanogos. In the winter, my drive home is breathtaking if I happen to leave just when the snow-covered mountain is reflecting the pink of the sunset to the west. Driving in the Heber Valley gives an entirely different, and magnificent, view of Timpanogos from the back (the people in Heber Valley may even think of that as the front!). Timpanogos can be seen from the south end of the Salt Lake Valley sneaking between two other peaks-and it took me a long time to realize it was Mount Timpanogos because it's seen from an end rather than its usual face. Finally, if I'm lucky enough to be flying home from somewhere in the east during daylight, the plane often approaches Salt Lake City from the south, and below me there is Timp, looking entirely different than she does from any other view. Which is the real Mount Timpanogos? Well, of course, they all are-the mountain doesn't change; only my perception does.
With physical objects, we're pretty comfortable with the idea that something can remain constant while our view changes. We might have an easier time in life if we could apply that same understanding to the non-physical world, to what we perceive emotionally, interpersonally, and spiritually. Compared to how they really are, our problems, challenges, interactions, and even decisions sometimes appear too large or too small to us. This proportion distortion can be dangerous to our spiritual health. It can cause us to become discouraged or angry enough to want to give up our efforts at living righteously or it can cause us to be cavalier about some of our choices and fail to give them proper attention.
So we need two kinds of perspective-the short view and the long view. First the short view. A friend of mine penned the following quotation in her calligraphy class. It hung on my office wall for several years, and I think about it often. "Sometimes, when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things."[7]
How often do we become discouraged with our progress on something because it seems too slow? How often do we discount the value of some action because it's so small? Let me tell you about what small things did for Gary. Gary, which isn't his real name, was a middle-aged participant in one of the weight management classes we used to offer through our department. We had had our lesson on physical activity, and Gary decided that he really wanted to be fit. So, he bought some jogging shoes and sweatpants and set the date for his jogging debut. His plan was to jog around his block a couple of times for the first few days then increase his distance.
The day for jogging arrived, and Gary put on his clothes, laced up his shoes, and started out the door. Excited to begin his jaunt around the block, he was quite surprised and distressed to find that about a quarter of the way around the block he was completely winded and couldn't manage another step. So Gary stopped and weighed his options. He could turn around and go back home, but he decided that would be too embarrassing. So he walked the rest of the way around the block to his home. Rather than give up on the whole jogging idea, the next morning Gary decided that he could jog as far as he had the previous day plus one house, then walk home. The next day he added one house more, and the next day one house more. One house! That's nothing! Well, by adding one house a day over many weeks, Gary found himself jogging a couple of miles easily. He felt better than he had in years, and developed an enjoyable and healthy habit. Tremendous consequences come from little things.
Please don't think that the only important decisions or actions are the big ones. The Lord doesn't-in Alma 37:6-7 He says, "but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls."
Recognize the power of small decisions and small actions for good or ill. It's the cumulative effect of many little decisions that determines if we are living righteous lives or lives enmeshed in sin.
Let's turn our attention to the long view for a moment. While it's important to recognize that little things have tremendous consequences, it's also important to recognize that some things are smaller than they seem and may even be inconsequential from the eternal perspective. Two statements by Elder Neal A. Maxwell illustrate this point. He said, "If we criticize God or are unduly miffed over sufferings and tribulation, we are really criticizing the Planner for implementing the very plan we once approved, premortally (see Job 38:4, 7). Granted, we don't now remember the actual approval. But not remembering is actually part of the plan!"[8] On another occasion, Elder Maxwell wrote this wonderful little reminder, "Having so very long ago set in motion His plan of salvation, God will not revise the structure or the schedule of this second estate just because you and I have a bad day."[9]
With the long view, it's easier to see that Heavenly Father loves us too much to spare us from the very experiences, difficult as they may be, that will develop in us the qualities needed to enter the Celestial Kingdom.
You've all lived long enough to know that life isn't always easy or fair. You know that sometimes the decisions of others, the fragile nature of a mortal body, and even the forces of nature can cause distress and pain. You know that you will sin and make some mistakes in your life. Viewing all of those with eternal perspective helps with the final P-Perseverance.
Perseverance must be important, or we wouldn't have so many scriptures admonishing us to endure to the end. None of them say, "slide to the end" or "sail to the end," so that must mean our Father recognizes that it isn't easy to do all that is required of us. But what a wonderful reward awaits us if we do. It's described in the Doctrine and Covenants this way: "And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God."[10]
I really like Paul's perseverant attitude in Philippians 3:13-14, "but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
How can we "forget those things that are behind?" What's behind might include times we have been wronged, sins of which we have repented, or simply painful experiences. Focusing on any of those can keep us from pressing forward.
And how Satan would enjoy helping us fail! In fact, that's his purpose. He would have us believe that people who have wronged us don't deserve our forgiveness and delights when we replay the hurt over and over in our minds. He would have us believe that no matter what we do, we are not worthy of forgiveness when we have sinned. That Heavenly Father can't really love and forgive someone who has done what we have done and that repentance isn't real and isn't enough. He would have us focus on the unfairness of life and question how God can really love us if He lets bad things happen to people who are trying as hard as we are to be good. Those are all lies. Satan would have us remember and replay all that is behind in order to have us forfeit all that lies ahead.
And what lies ahead is the focus of what Paul said-we must reach forth and press toward the mark. If we remember our purpose, plan appropriately, and maintain our perspective, our ability to persevere is greatly increased. When we encounter obstacles, they become instructive rather than damning. Our perseverance will lead us to the greatest of all the gifts of God.
Well, I began today by talking about recommendations. I pointed out that the opinions of others matter as we try to progress in our professional and academic lives. I showed you some of the facets of a typical recommendation form, and noted that even in a secular setting, what we are is more important than what we know. The most important concept we examined today is that of being worthy of the Savior's recommendation-of living a life consistent with His standards and His expectations. In preparation for that final loving and just judgment, perhaps we can perform a self-evaluation from time to time. We can ask ourselves:
How well do I. . . Remember my purpose,
Demonstrate the ability to plan
Maintain perspective, and
Show perseverance
The Four Ps can help us live our mortal existence in a way that will be pleasing to the Lord and worthy of His commendation. One other thing to remember about the Lord's commendation-He is judging us from a perspective of love and abundance. There may be a finite number of slots in graduate school or the workplace or the scholarship pool. There is no limit to how many worthy souls can enter the Celestial Kingdom. The Savior isn't trying to screen us out; He's trying to draw us in. I testify of the love our Father in Heaven and our Savior have for us, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Recommend. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/recommend
[2] Lynn G. Robbins, "What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?" Ensign, May 2011, 103
[3] Doctrine and Covenants 45:3-5; 110:4
[4] Matthew 25:21
[5] http://thinkexist.com/quotes/lewis_carroll/
[6] 2 Nephi 31:18
[7] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bruce_Fairchild_Barton
[8] Cory H. Maxwell, ed., The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book, 1997, 254
[9] Cory H. Maxwell, ed., The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book, 1997, 254
[10] Doctrine and Covenants 14:7