Running Races and Seeing Blind

"If you don't get a good internship the summer after your junior year, your chances of having a successful career in business are really low." When I heard my finance professor, someone I really respect, say this one day in class, my heart sunk. It was already March and I still didn't have any significant leads or interests in any particular internship. The uncertainty about my summer plans and my future was really causing me angst. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I want to be successful in my career, and at this point, I wouldn’t accept any other outcome in my life than to be a successful, well-known businessman who had built impactful, well-respected companies through my own hard work, intellect, and flare with people. Any other outcome would be of little value to me (Pretty arrogant, I know). But despite my diligent efforts, I couldn't seem to nail down what path I really wanted to take. Throughout the semester, I had discovered a lot about myself and what type of work I like to do, but no matter what opportunity I was considering, I couldn't quite feel right about it. Some of you reading this may be thinking, "You're not going to find your dream job as a college student looking for an internship. Just pick something and get some experience." I knew this, but it didn’t feel that simple. I didn't feel right about pursuing any of the opportunities in front of me.

Then one day, when I was speaking to one of my good friends about my unplanned summer, I ended up expressing my desire to just try and start a business of my own. As we talked about some of the things I could do, I started getting that feeling I get when I know I'm pursuing something good for me. I latched on to that feeling and decided to try to start a business this summer. The decision surprised me because it wasn’t a conventional thing for someone like me to do. It didn't follow the "get a big firm's name on your resume" approach to starting a career, even though I had quit a job I loved at the MTC to follow that approach. This both excited me and terrified me. What if I failed and ended up not doing anything meaningful this summer? What if I get pegged as someone unwilling to leave Provo/Utah? What if I end up as one of the statistics I'm always reading about: graduating and earning less than $25,000 a year in a job that doesn't even require a degree? What would my strategy classmates think of me? What if this decision doesn't lead to a job after graduation and I end up doing something lame and ruining my chances of going to a top business school? Or worse, what if I end up poor and my future wife and children are deprived of a good lifestyle because I can't provide for them?

A little melodramatic, I know.

It's a little embarrassing to confess, but these really were some of the thoughts and concerns I had as I scrambled to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Most of what I was feeling was irrational and pretty silly when considered in the context of life's big picture. Yet, it's really how I was feeling. Facing these fears of mine, however, did give me an opportunity to look to God for guidance and perspective. Doing so has brought an immense amount of peace, direction, and confidence into my life.

Lesson 1: Whose race are you running?

As I have tried to gain perspective on the decisions I’m trying to make, I've tried to focus my scripture study on the life of Christ. Because He is "the way, the truth and the light," I figured I should try and understand what Christ would be considering were He in my situation. As I’ve been studying His life more closely, it overwhelms me how little Christ cared about the honors of men. Despite being the Savior of the world, with the ability to do and accomplish anything, He chose to be a humble servant to His brothers and sisters, foregoing worldly honors and positions. One morning, as I considered Christ's example and felt a desire to just be a good person regardless of what I ended up doing, a cynical thought came into my mind: "It's cool that Christ just spent His life serving others and being kind, but don't you know, 'Nice guys finish last.'" As soon as I thought this, another voice in my mind responded, "That depends on whose race you're running."

That thought really impacted me. I started asking myself, "Whose race am I running?" It has become an incredibly important question to me over the last couple of months. I learned in Accounting 200 that what you measure is what you get in results. If I wanted the best results, I needed to find the metrics that would lead me to those results. This question has helped me realize that there are two competing sets of metrics I can measure myself against: The Lord's and the world's. I've also learned that I have to choose. I can't say that I want my success to be measured against the Lord's metrics while still worrying about how I'm doing against the world's. This realization has helped me to understand this scripture more completely: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt. 6:24). The world looks at a person's wealth, position, prominence, property, and fame to determine what type of success he or she is. In contrast, the Lord established love, obedience, service, kindness, sacrifice, humility, and other Godly attributes as His standard for success. So, although "nice guys" might finish last in the world's race, in God's race "the last shall be first" (Matt 20:16).

I need to be clear, though. Just because a person has wealth, prominence, and high position, does not mean that they have chosen to be measured against the world's definition of success. I know there are many well-known, wealthy people that clearly choose to measure their life against what God values rather than what the world values. Interestingly, the more I studied the scriptures about this subject, the more I learned that measuring our lives against the Lord's metrics often brings temporal prosperity (e.g Mosiah 2:41; Jacob 2:18-19). Therefore, it’s not the possessing of worldly goods and honors that is looked down upon by God, it's the treasuring of such things that brings God's disapproval, for "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matt. 6:21). What I've learned is that people that are successful in God's eyes may or may not have lots of temporal blessings, but they never define their success by those things; rather, they measure their success by how closely they are following the Savior's example. Ezra Taft Benson taught about this measurement of success: "That man or woman is most truly successful whose life most closely parallels that of the [Savior]…The best measure of true greatness is how Christlike we are."

Understanding that I have the option of running two different races has brought clarity to all of the decisions I am making. Although it would be nice to start and lead an amazingly successful company, make lots of money, and then use that money to create lots of organizations, businesses, etc… that add value to the people of the world, it’s nice to know that my success in life is not tied to those metrics. It’s nice to know that if I’m doing my best to be a good friend, brother, son, husband, father, and disciple of Christ, that my life can be truly successful in the eyes of God. And it’s nice to know that as long as my life is pleasing to God, I don’t have to worry about anyone else’s opinion about how successful I am.

I’ve often heard stories of people that do things like leave a high-stakes business meeting right in the middle because they promised their son they would be at their little league game. I have to be honest, I’ve wondered at times how they had the gumption to do that. I think I understand now. They were running a different race, they were living according to different metrics. As I’ve pondered about this concept, it’s become clear that for me, and for God, even more important than being CEO, Stanford business grad, or the guy on the cover page of Success magazine is being a good husband, father, son, and friend. More important than getting the promotion is promoting kindness and generosity. More important than prestige and wealth is being humble and “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3). More important than being the best is giving my best to God and my fellow travelers on earth. The things of this world may or may not come to me, but one thing is certain, no earthly thing I receive will last forever. Only the relationships I create and my own character—the way I treat others, the devotion I have to a worthy cause, the service I give to my fellowmen—will remain a part of me during and after this life. Every other earthly circumstance is temporary.

Lesson 2: Faith is Blindness

Another thing I am learning is that faith equals blindness. Not blindness in the physical sense, but blindness in the sense of being unable to see and control everything in my life. The scriptures seem to be pretty clear on this:

“For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

“If ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21).

“Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6).

As I’ve tried to figure out what I should do with my life, I’ve become frustrated at times when I felt that God wasn’t helping very much. That feeling was obviously a fallacious one since God is ever watchful over us and guides and blesses us in ways we often don’t recognize. However, my fallacious thinking did lead me to learn this important lesson: If you want to have true faith in Christ, you have to give up trying to see and control everything in your life; you have to learn to trust that God has a plan for you and loves you too much to ever forsake you. You must learn to be comfortable “not knowing beforehand the things which [you] should do” but going forth anyway. In other words, you must learn to be comfortable being blind. But this type of blindness does not eliminate all sight; rather, it narrows our sight to focus solely on the Savior, assuring us that He is the Captain of our ship and will guide us safely to our own promised land. Some may interpret that as giving up our own dreams and ambitions. I disagree. Instead, it’s freeing yourself to reach your greatest potential. Like Elder Neal A. Maxwell said of allowing our wills to be swallowed up by God’s, “It is not a question of one’s losing identity but of finding his true identity!” President Ezra Taft Benson added his witness of this principle:

“Yes, men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace.”

Recognizing the immense blessings that come from the blindness of faith has awakened a deep desire to know how I can turn my life over to the Savior. I’m definitely not perfect at it, but I’ve found that as I seek to “lose [myself]” for Christ’s sake, He truly does bless me to “find [myself]” (Matthew 10:39). This truth has helped me recognize that although my career and financial success is important in some ways, the ability to press forward with a desire to do God’s will, even when I can’t see the way ahead, is infinitely more important to Him than what position I hold in a corporation or what business I build. I believe that most useful to God are those willing to move, act and serve without needing to see the end result of all their actions. They can do that because they know that God will care for them as they seek to honor His name. I truly hope to become that type of man. 

Lesson 3: Faith must be in Christ

Learning more about blindness associated with exercising true faith has opened my eyes to a theological fallacy I sometimes find myself falling into. It is that of focusing my faith on results rather than on Jesus Christ. I’ve often thought it difficult to know which type of faith we should seek to exercise since it seems to me that we are often taught about two different types: 1). Faith to “make things happen” and 2). As Elder Bednar taught, “faith not to be healed,” or in other words, faith to humbly accept things when they don’t work out like we hoped. These two types of faith have seemed paradoxical to me. Do I seek to have so much faith that I am able to shape my own destiny and circumstances? Or do I seek to have enough faith to simply accept God’s will, being fine with whatever happens. To me, the first type of faith seems to disregard God’s will and puts one’s trust in the arm of the flesh. The second type seems to be too capitulating or apathetic, as if we shouldn’t try since God will just do whatever He wants, anyway. On top of that, I sometimes worry that trying to have faith to “make things happen” will lead me to being un-submissive, obstinate, and proud. But I also worry that being too accepting will lead me to fail to sufficiently act, thereby causing me to miss out on blessings I otherwise could have brought about with the Lord’s help.

The scriptures seems to have examples of both types of faith. Nephi, the Brother of Jared, Ammon, Jacob (Israel), Joshua, Elijah, and many others exercised tenacious faith and brought about incredible miracles that blessed many people. No less impressive, however, are those that endured intense suffering with continual faith and patience: Job, Jeremiah, Abinadi, Alma and Amulek watching the believers being burned, the people of Ammon being slaughtered because of their faith, and the list could go on. Considering all these examples has often had me asking, “How do I know when to have which type of faith?”

The problem with this question and this way of thinking is that it is focused on results—do I have faith that God will grant me the desires of my heart if I work hard enough? or do I have faith to accept that God will do with me what He wants, and I just need to accept that? The problem with focusing on results is that the results will often vary. Sometimes it seems God wants us to be on the move, causing things we desire to happen through our divinely empowered actions. Other times, it seems he would have us “be still and know that [He] is God,” accepting His will, even if it’s hard (Psalms 46:10). This makes it difficult to have consistent, strong faith because we don’t know which outcome to hope and work for.

 But the confusion comes from looking beyond the mark and failing to focus on Christ. In the scriptures, it is clear that both those who accomplished great miracles and those who humbly accepted difficult circumstances “first believed in the Son of God” (Ether 12:18). When belief in Christ becomes central to our faith, there is no longer a dichotomy between the two types of faith. They simply become one faith in Christ.  

To describe what I mean, I will use an example that has often confused me but has now become clearer with a better understanding of this principle. Imagine you really want to make the sports team or get that internship or get an “A” in the class in which you don’t have a lot of natural talent. When you’re focused on results, you might think something like this: 1). “I’m going to work so hard and prepare so much that there is no way God won’t help me get the job or make the team, etc…,” or 2). “God just didn’t give me as much talent as other people in this area so I guess that just means I need to accept and be grateful for what He gives me.” Clearly, there are merits to both of these types of thinking, but I think a better approach may be something like this: “I really want to make the team, etc… and I absolutely believe that God can grant me the strength, intellect, and endurance I need to accomplish my goal. So as long as I don’t feel Him trying to stop me from pursuing this objective, I’m going to go after it with all I have. However, if things don’t work out the way I would like them to, I will believe that Christ loves me and has a wise purpose in all things, and I am willing to accept His will in this matter. I will try to learn what He would have me learn from this experience.” In other words, we assert our belief in Christ’s power to help us accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible or go unaccomplished, and we show willingness to put forth our best efforts to bring about the desired blessing. Simultaneously, we express our trust in God’s wisdom and are ready submit to His will if the end outcome is different than we desire, acknowledging that He will never forsake us and that he “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of [us]” (2 Nephi 26:24).

With this mindset, Christ— His power, wisdom, and love for us— becomes the common thread in all that we do and in all that we experience. When our faith is centered on the Savior, our best, consistent efforts are no longer to obtain a specific result; it is to show our faith in Christ’s power to help us achieve. Additionally, our acceptance of God’s will, even when it is contrary to our own, is not shoulder-shrugging submission; it is an active expression of trust in Christ’s wisdom, mercy, and love for us. Indeed, with our faith fixed on Jesus, we are finally able to “look unto [Him] in every thought. Doubt not. Fear not” (D&C 6:36).

With the complexity of life’s changing circumstances and the quintessential need to know and do God’s will, it has become increasingly clear why God directs us to “counsel with the Lord in all thy doings” (Alma 37:37). Doing so invites the Holy Ghost into our lives with the promise that “he will direct thee for good” and “shall teach you all things” (Alma 37:37; John 14:26). This certainly includes teaching us how to focus our faith on Christ as we pursue our dreams, goals, and discipleship. I have found that when I sincerely wish to know and do God’s will, God will not allow me to miss out on blessings, either by exercising too little faith or taking too much control of my life, without warning me first. He wants to bless us, and He will help us know what is required of us as we counsel with Him.

Placing Christ at the center of my faith has helped me relinquish my fears of pursuing the “wrong” path in my life because my faith in Christ’s love assures me that He will not allow me to go astray. It has helped me know how to exercise faith to accomplish my biggest life dreams while still being open to the unforeseen paths God has prepared for me. It has diminished my fear of failure because I know that God will either help me succeed or teach me important, redeeming lessons through my falling short. It has enabled me to learn, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” because I know Heavenly Father will place me where I can learn and grow the most (Philippians 4:11). Whether in prosperity or in difficulty, my life experiences can literally be “swallowed up in the joy of Christ” insomuch that I “cannot fall” from the peace and equanimity I gain from Him (Alma 31:38; Helaman 5:12).

“By the grace of God”

I still don’t know what will become of my fledgling business or my career as a whole. I don’t know when all my important life events will occur or how they will occur. Like Nephi, I definitely “do not know the meaning of all things” (1 Nephi 11:17). But if there is anything I am beginning to know with an absolute knowledge, it is that God “loveth his children” and desires to help them succeed in the most important ways. I express my deep humility and appreciation that God lovingly teaches and patiently guides me. With Paul, I readily acknowledge that “By the grace of God, I am what I am” and I will be what I will be (1 Corinthians 15:10). I still have a ways to go before these lessons—running the right race, embracing the blindness of faith, and centering my faith in Christ, not results—become a part of my character, but I can sincerely say that it’s what I want. And although a successful career with a nice salary and wide-spread respect could be nice, I can now say that what I want even more than that is to be able to echo, with every other striving disciple of Jesus Christ, the heart-felt anthem, “So trusting my all to thy tender care, and knowing thou lovest me, I’ll do thy will with a heart sincere: I’ll be what you want me to be” (I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go”).