You would think that people would want to put their very best foot forward when submitting a resume. You would think they would at least check for typo's. Yet, according to the firm Accountemps, here are some real-life excerpts from real people's resumes:

"Dear sir: I am a rabid typist." Well, I hope she doesn't bite anyone.

"I'm a quick leaner." Probably his last job was with the highway department.

"I seek challenges that test my mind and body because the two are usually inseparable." That was probably on Shirley MacLaine's resume.

"Here are my qualifications for you to overlook." O.K.

"Hope to hear from you shorty." Takes one to know one. (1)

Do you know what it takes to make it in life? It takes hard work. It takes doing it right the first time. People talk about working smarter and not harder, but that can be deceptive. People who make a difference in this world do both. They have a passion, a vision, a burning desire to be the best they can be.

Baseball fans may recognize the name Brett Butler. According to Greg Johnson in an article in YOUTH magazine (May 1993, p. 27-28), Butler was a tiny kid that all the rest of the guys picked on. Butler did not have a fun youth.

"Every day for two years," Brett says, "the other kids in junior high would chase me around the playground and try to pull my underwear up above my pants. I would run and run and finally just run home. Every day."

For Brett, the perils of being small didn't end at age twelve. When he played football in high school, they had to go to the junior high school to get his pads because he was so small. He played quarterback and had to roll out just to see over the offensive line. His voice was so high that it cracked when he called the signals, and the opposition would laugh. But his dad told him something he never forgot: "If you don't believe in yourself, nobody else will." That motivated him to give his best.

His high school baseball coach ridiculed him when Brett had the nerve to say he wanted to play baseball at Arizona State (one of the top baseball colleges in the country). But Brett grabbed his glove and went off to Arizona State anyway. He wound up as the leading hitter on their junior varsity team, but was not offered the scholarship he desperately wanted. So, he went off to tiny Southeastern Oklahoma State where he eventually became a two-time All-American. In 1979 he was drafted by the Atlanta Braves organization ” in the twenty-third round! Brett is 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 156 pounds, and wears size 7 shoes (the smallest in baseball).

Today Brett is with the L.A. Dodgers. Everyone takes Brett seriously now. He's recognized as the best bunter in baseball. He steals more than forty bases a year and scores over a hundred runs as well. In 1990 he led the league with 160 singles and 288 times on base. Brett made the All-Star team in 1991 and was in the top ten in hitting in 1992. Plus, he hits into double plays only about every two hundred times at bat. He's every manager's dream for a lead-off hitter.

Did Brett Butler made it to the major leagues on the basis of pure athletic ability? Of course not. Here is the secret truth that we need to tell every young person in this land ” the very best work harder. It's true in sports, in business, in music, in every endeavor in life. The secret of life is passion, determination, desire.

Jesus told a parable about a man who owned a vineyard. In that vineyard was a fig tree ” a fig tree that had no fruit on it. "Cut it down," the owner said to his vinedresser. "For three years I have been looking for fruit on this tree and have found none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?"

Time and time again Jesus showed his impatience with people who do not take advantage of the opportunities God has given them. They are nice people but they are not producing fruit. Christ asks, what is it that you are passionate about? What is it you are giving your life to accomplish? What fruit are you bearing?

NOTE, FIRST OF ALL, THAT JESUS ISN'T ASKING THE FIG TREE TO PRODUCE BANANAS. Jesus isn't asking anything extraordinary out of the fig tree. He isn't asking the fig tree to become an oak or a redwood. Jesus is asking only that it accomplish what fig trees ought to accomplish ” bear figs.

You and I have differing gifts. Some of us have nice singing voices. Some have graceful bodies. Some have high IQ's. Some are artists. Some are good with numbers; others are good with people. All of us have some natural ability, though. My ability will be different from yours, each of us has some natural ability. The secret is to find our natural abilities and give them all we've got.

That's what genius is. When we say that someone is a genius, all we are saying is that they gave maximum effort in the area of their lives where they have natural ability. That's it. That's the secret of success ” find what we're naturally good at and give it our best. A person who can't carry a tune will never sing with the Met no matter how hard they work. On the other hand, there are many performers who as young people had quite ordinary voices, but through hard work ” thousands and thousands of hours of practice ” have become accomplished singers. It was not that they had extraordinary talent to begin with. It was that they took what they had and used it to the utmost of their ability.

Enrico Caruso was told by one music teacher, "You can't sing. You have no voice at all." Yet he became of the best-loved singers of his time.

Beethoven's music teacher said about him, "As a composer he is hopeless."

An editor told Louisa May Alcott that she was incapable of writing anything that would have popular appeal. That, of course, was before LITTLE WOMEN.

Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper editor because he was thought to have no "good ideas." Tell that to the millions of people thrilled by Walt's movies.

When F. W. Woolworth was 21, he got a job in a store, but was not allowed to wait on customers because he "didn't have enough sense."

Each of these famous people proved to have a certain genius ” but was it innate or did it grow out of their dedication to developing what they had been given?

Somerset Maugham said it best in his autobiography SUMMING UP, "I knew that I had no lyrical quality, a small vocabulary, little gift of metaphor. The original and striking simile never occurred to me. Poetic flights...were beyond my powers. On the other hand, I had an acute power of observation, and it seemed to me that I could see a great many things that other people missed. I could put down in clear terms what I saw...I knew that I should never write as well as I could wish, but I thought, with pains, that I could arrive at writing as well as my natural defects allowed." Somerset Maugham discovered the secret of genius.

The point is that life does not ask us to become what we are not. The fig tree was only required to produce figs. No more. You and I are asked only to accomplish what our natural gifts allow. BUT WE ARE ASKED TO ACCOMPLISH THAT.

A man was walking through the countryside when he noticed a young fellow standing at attention in a field. In the afternoon, the walker came back along the same path and noticed that the fellow was still there.

Curious, he approached and asked what the young man was doing.

"I'm practicing for the Nobel Prize," the man replied.

"How's that?" asked the visitor.

"Well," said the young man, "one of the criteria is to be outstanding in your chosen field."

If you and I are going to be outstanding in our chosen field, we are going to have to do more than stand around.

For example, how's your memory? Did you know that most of us do not really have poor memories? What we have are untrained memories.

A psychologist named Ericsson and his associates at Carnegie-Mellon University have taught college students to listen to lists of random digits and then to recite that list correctly. After 50 hours of practice with differing sets of random digits, four students were able to remember up to 20 digits after a single hearing. One student, a business major not especially talented in mathematics, was able to remember 102 digits. The feat took him more than 400 hours of practice. (2)

If you met him, you would say, What a memory. No! What dedication. Success is taking what we have and giving it our best. We can develop our memory if that is our desire. We can develop our vocabulary. We can develop our vocational skills. All we have to have is the desire. All we have to have is the passion.

OF COURSE, THERE IS ONE AREA OF LIFE WHERE ALL OF US ARE EQUALLY GIFTED. That is in following Jesus and bearing spiritual fruit. The question is, is it that important to us? Are we willing to give it our best? To Jim Mertz the question is phrased like this: Do we really love Jesus that much?

Jim once watched a movie on television. In it he saw a Muslim from India fall on his knees in the dust and heat of the day. Five times a day this Muslim stopped, faced his holy city of Mecca and worshiped Allah. Jim asked himself the question ” do I really love Jesus like that?

Jim read of a young mother who was seen throwing her precious, new-born infant child into the Ganges River! She told someone that her child was a sacrifice, a love offering to her god! "You see," she said, "we always offer our very best in sacrifice to our god!" Jim then asked himself the question ” do I really love Jesus that much? What have I sacrificed for him? Have I truly given my best to him?

Jim once lay in a hospital for 10 days recuperating from a bout with pneumonia. It was a Saturday morning in the wintry days of January. He glanced outside at the cold, gray skies and watched the blowing rain that came down all day. How thankful he was to be inside! Then, he happened to see at a busy intersection of the city, below his hospital window, a young lady ” a teenager perhaps ” who was standing on the street corner selling roses. She never stopped smiling all day in that cold rain, in the midst of congested traffic, in spite of jeers and sneers of those who on occasion nearly ran her down. She never stopped, all day, in the rain to sell flowers for her cult leader ” The Reverend Sun Yung Moon. Jim wept as he asked himself that question again ” do I really love Jesus that much?

Early one Saturday morning Jim's doorbell rang. He hastened to the door and was met by two lovely and enthusiastic young people. They were smiling and anxious to talk about the doctrines of their religious sect. They were not doctrines Jim could accept, but these two young people were so sincere, and so dedicated to their cause that Jim couldn't help but be impressed. As Jim closed the door, he peered out the window to watch as they left his driveway. Jim then asked himself the question again ” do I really love Jesus? Am I ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Would I go out and knock on doors and tell others about Christ?

It is not a matter of opportunity, is it? It's not for want of ability. It is a matter of passion, of desire, of giving one's best to the Master.

Of the barren fig tree the owner of the vineyard said to his vinedresser , "Cut it down; why should it use up ground?" And the vinedresser answered, "Give it another year, sir. Let me put fertilizer around it and if it bears fruit, well and good; but, if not, you can cut it down."

There's still time. Wouldn't this be a good time and a good place to ask ourselves whether we are bearing the fruit that Christ means for us to bear ” in our jobs, in our homes, in our communities, in serving him? We're not asked to be something we are not. All Christ is asking of us is that we be the best that we can be. That is the secret of success.

1. TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT, July 1994, p. 72.

2. LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, October 13, 1994, p. B10.