Do you need me to write you a letter of recommendation?

By Dean Collins

In most job searches you are asked to submit a resumé. The resumé in some ways is your letter of recommendation. It contains academic accomplishments, describes competencies you possess, documents your experiences, and lists awards you have received. The resumé doesn’t get you the job, but it can determine whether you get the interview.

Many hiring managers require references. Sometimes a candidate submits a letter of recommendation from a well-known or well-qualified reference. With or without such letters, the employer usually calls the reference to ask about the candidate. In this call, the hiring manager tries to get insight into the candidate’s character and abilities. In a way these conversations are oral letters of recommendation.

Written letters

I have an odd confession. I’ve never submitted a resumé. In my senior year of college I knew God was calling me to start a campus ministry at Auburn University. (It’s a long story for another day’s writing.) I asked a few adults I knew if they would serve as a board of directors and help me get started. A prominent preacher, Jim Dyer from southwest Atlanta, decided to write a letter of recommendation and send it to about 300 pastors in the southeast to introduce this new ministry and get me started with fundraising. I don’t remember asking for the letter; I’m pretty sure at the time I didn’t know enough to ask. He was just doing what he thought might help me.

The letter generated a few leads and offers to help. But one response was a scolding letter from an Atlanta pastor telling Preacher Jim he was crazy for recommending a twenty-one-year-old not yet graduated from college to start a ministry at a state university. This pastor adamantly opposed the idea and said he wouldn’t support it. I remember thinking this might be harder than I realized and I began to question my decision. Preacher Jim just put his arm around me and told me not to worry about the criticism. He told me he believed God was at work here, and he was behind me. He also suggested that important things worth doing aren’t easy to do.

Living letters

As we read many of Paul’s epistles we discover the apostle had a few who opposed him and his ministry as well. In fact, in the third chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul asked his readers, “Do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?” And he gave a surprising answer to his question: “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.”

Preacher Jim had watched me for four years work as very young youth minister at another church nearby. We also worked every summer for two weeks in a church camp where he observed me with teenagers. As I think back on those days and read 2 Corinthians, I realize those teenagers were my letter of recommendation. They were the evidence that prompted Preacher Jim to write a letter of recommendation.

Those teenagers were my letter of recommendation.

Those teenagers are now in their fifties and some are even sixty. The ones I have kept up with are doing fine in spite of a very green youth minister who didn’t really know what he was doing. Because they were teenagers, they often made mistakes and sometimes got into all kinds of trouble. But they, like me, were slowly and steadily growing in faith and being literally transformed by the gospel.

Transformed lives

The apostle Paul said the Corinthian church was his letter of recommendation. This is the same church he had to write a stern letter to in order to correct divisive behavior, sexual sins, pride, and their misunderstanding of Scripture. Yet even with all of these problems, Paul saw God slowly and steadily transforming their lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul knew he wasn’t smart enough or good enough to achieve these results. Only God can do that kind of transformation. But God chooses to use weak and flawed people as his vessels in ministry. When we surrender to God and allow him to use us, then he is glorified. It is never about us. It is always about him.

When we surrender to God and allow him to use us, then he is glorified.
It is never about us. It is always about him.

Chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians reminds us that just following all of the laws and commands of Scripture doesn’t produce righteousness. In fact living that way might even repel others or make us feel entitled or prideful about our abilities. And according to Paul (and our own experience if we’re honest), we can never actually pull it off. We can’t keep the rules perfectly. In order to be used by God we must first be transformed by God. When the Spirit of God puts his imprint on our hearts, something miraculous happens. Our eyesight improves! We can see clearly that we can’t accomplish much by ourselves but, empowered by God’s Spirit, we are set free and can watch God do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask or think.

I’m grateful for those teenagers from a little church called Westside Christian in East Point Georgia. They wrote me a pretty strong letter of recommendation. Without their letter I might not have gotten that first job!

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3:1-18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash