Ambition

Ambition in Scripture

• Genesis 11:4, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens. . ."
• Proverbs 21:21, "Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honor."
• Isaiah 14:12-15, thinking too highly
• Matthew 4:8-10, the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain
• Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.'"
• Matthew 6:33, "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
• Luke 9:25, "What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?"
• Romans 2:7-8, there will be retribution for those governed by selfish ambition
• Romans 15:20, "I [Paul] make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else's foundation."
• 1 Corinthians 14:12, "Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church."
• 2 Corinthians 5:6-9, walk by faith and not by sight
• Galatians 5:19-21, sinful behavior will not inherit the kingdom of God
• Philippians 2:3, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves."
• 1 Thessalonians 4:10-11, "aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you."
• 1 Timothy 3:1, "The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task."
• James 3:14, 16, "IFor where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind."

Reflections about Ambition

Ambition is morally ambiguous. On the one hand, selfish ambition can be morally and spiritually devastating. According to traditional Christian thinking, ambition caused the fall of the angels and of the first humans. They had a strong desire to "be like God." They wanted to vault over the line between creature and creator. Unsurprisingly, life and literature since then have been full of people who hungered for fame, power over others, and unsurpassable wealth. Adolf Hitler's dream was to turn Germany into an empire that would conquer and exploit most of Europe for a millennium. His ambition caused indescribable suffering. Ambitious striving may lead to idolatry and strife and sometimes even to tyranny. Lots of type-A hard drivers want God to get out of the way so they can build their towers and collect their kudos. Foolish pride bedevils us still. On vacation one summer in the Rockies, I heard the story of a man, an expert skier, who lost his life while skiing off-trail in an avalanche area. He knew perfectly well that what he was doing was risky. But his ambition was to leave tracks across impossible terrain so that anybody who rode up an adjacent chairlift would see those tracks and admire the skill that made them.

On the other hand, ambition may also be noble, as when a Christian "strives first for the kingdom of God." Paul was ambitious to spread the gospel where it hadn't gone before. He craved the difficult work of trailblazing. Jesus challenged his followers to "hunger and thirst for righteousness," and Paul called us to distinctly Christian ambitions: to live quietly, to build up the church, to please the Lord.

The same ambition for high accomplishment that drives the arrogant and the foolhardy also gives us great cathedrals, glorious music, terrific sermons, and flourishing businesses. Where would Christians be without ambition? Does anybody want a son-in-law who lacks it? The parable of the talents should remind us that "safety first" was not Jesus' motto. For him, obedience comes first, and that often means taking a reverent risk for the kingdom of God. But if we are slackers inside the kingdom, one of the most terrible things God could ask any of us on the day of judgment is "Do you mean you never even tried?" Here are seven observations about the push and pull of ambition:

• The energy that fuels accomplishment is a gift of God. All real energy comes from the ultimate power source in the universe. Taking pride in a doing a job well is just as often a virtue of the diligent as it is a sin of the arrogant. In any case, it's not a bad idea to buy the goods and services of people who take pride in their work.
• It's one thing to want to do a job well because it's right to do it that way and because it therefore pleases the Lord and contributes to his kingdom. It's another thing to want to do a job well because you will then get your name splashed across social media.
• Although it's not hard to figure out which of these last two attitudes is better, it is hard to figure out which has the upper hand in another human being. Take a person who's never satisfied with her work. Is she humble or proud? Or take a hard-charging minister. As Eugene Peterson has said, it's pretty hard to tell whether a minister's ambitious leadership amounts to courageous faith or mere self-importance. But we still must go ahead and make solid decisions in the church when we don't know. The minister may not know.
• When we do fine things, even for God, we might sometimes do them for partly sinful reasons. Again, that's just the way it is. And we ought not to stop trying to do fine things just because we are afraid of lapsing into vanity or some other folly. The truth is that we will lapse at times, and that when we do, we ought to get on our knees about it. And then we ought to stand up and go back to work, trusting God to help us do better. The idea is that even if God can hit straight shots with crooked sticks, our job is to be as straight as we can — and in any case to keep soldiering on.
• We may fight self-importance by accepting our failures and then by accepting the liberating grace of God that follows them.
• "Be all that you can be" comes from the U.S. Army, not hte Bible. In biblical perspective, it's okay not to do everything, not to try everything, not to develop all your gifts. Maybe we should develop just the ones the kingdom needs from us right now. There is a life to come, after all, and there will be plenty of time then to practice photography or the saxophone.
• The final truth is that God's kingdom is going to come whether we fly high or not. We do have to answer for what we make of our lives, and regular self-examination is therefore in order — even about our virtues. But the rest of the time we ought to walk out into the sunshine, do our work, and delight in the opportunity God gives us to play a role in the coming of the kingdom. The attitude we bring to our work, paid or volunteer, should be neither arrogance nor despair, but joy — sheer joy at being part of something immeasurably bigger and more mysterious than any of us could ever have dreamed.