What is your ambition in life?
July 29th, 2008 Posted in Christianity, ChurchThis is quite a big question.
Ambition has lead many people to do a great many things. Some of these ambitions have revolutionized whole facets of daily life and the world has never been the same since. Some have been maniacal projects whereby millions have died or had their lives ruined. Both a result of ambition.
I may be on my own on this but does anyone else feel that ambition is sometimes lacking in the Christian community? Not publicly in sermons or from preachers rhetoric but by individuals in their own unique situation. It can produce thoughts of climbing ladders, reaching above your means, trampling on people and putting yourself first. Do these thoughts have to go hand in hand with ambition?
I am by no means a linguist but I do have a passing interest in the etymology of words. The eytmology of ambition suggests that it originates from Latin and meant “going around and collecting votes”. That is paraphrased a little so I urge you to have a read but in itself that is quite revealing. Soliciting people for votes creates a vastly different perception of ambition than, say, having a vision to feed the third world. Both equally ambitious in their own right, yet the goals are very different.
This post came about as a response to both a conversation in Small Group last night and as a follow up to my previous post. Should Christians be ambitious on the career ladder? Does being a Christian prevent you from being ambitious in a worldly sense? Very open ended I know but I don’t want to focus on specific situations. I really think we need to start being ambitious for Christ. In prayer, in worship, in living, in spending time within Him and anything else you might care to think of.
What is your “Christian” ambition?
With your gifts, talents and experience what is the dream project which you would use to advance the Kingdom of God?
Please leave your comments on this one. Not only will it be good for you to get it out but it can only servce to inspire others - that is a good thing.
27 Responses to “What is your ambition in life?”
By Lincoln Rozelle on Jul 30, 2008
Good question. I’ll tell you sometime. I’d like it to be something like this:
“One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul. And sooner than that I should seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me. It is this: That in spite of all worldy opposition, God’s holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which the Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation again pays homage to God.”
Abraham Kuyper - 1897
Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
By christine on Aug 2, 2008
mine is a bit abstract but it’s all based in christianity. basically i want to stop the abuse of creation. To me that means stopping animal testing, furring, factory farming, and eventually all animal cruelty. i’ve talked about this with my bible study group and they always say that God wants us to love and serve eachother: I agree. I also think it’s important that we look after what was entrusted to us by God. I think this is what God is calling me to do so i’m going for it with my degree:, chemistry with medicinal and biological chemistry, with the aim of replacing all animal testing. Then i’ll tackle the others, any thoughts?
By Alastair on Aug 2, 2008
Out of interest - do you believe animal testing to be acceptable at some level? Cosmetic testing, sure, I disagree with that; but what about medical testing?
My flatmate is working as a genetic biologist on a project which has the potential to cure asthma and such respiratory diseases, if the appropriate gene can be extracted from a harmful bacteria and successfully introduced into a host. The lab employs a statistician, who works out the exact mathematical certainty needed on each test, so as to ensure the use of the absolute minimal number of animals. But the investigation wouldn’t be possible without lab-bred, sterile mice.
Sorry if I’m diverging, Harrison, Well actually, I’m not sorry at all.
By christine on Aug 2, 2008
to answer your question: no. i dont think anything justifies the pain endured by animals and i don’t think there are any grounds upon which we can claim that we have the right to use them. as i’ve been asked about this many times there are a few other bits that have to be said to go with that statement. i do think we have benefitted from animal testing and some people i know would have died without it (my mum of cancer for example) but it’s not the discoveries or the advances in technology that i’m against- it’s the method. i want to make a better way of testing medicine that would be more reliable because it didn’t rely on animal response data for human problems but instead used virtual or chemical modelling.
i hope that answers your question- did i miss anything?
By Alastair on Aug 3, 2008
Nope, you didn’t miss anything, I was just interested. Thanks.
By Harrison on Aug 3, 2008
Divergences are deemed to be acceptable on my blog…
Great comments so far - do we have any more!?
By Laura Anne on Aug 5, 2008
Eek. That’s a really difficult question…
The truth is, I don’t know anymore. When I left school after 5th year it was do study Geography and become a teacher. And write a book at some point…
It’s kinda difficult to explain what my dream is now, as I only have a vision to see people healed and restored, but don’t know how that is to happen…just taking steps one by one…
By Alastair on Aug 5, 2008
I’m thinking that, perhaps, the lack of reply points to a general lack of ambition.
I met a guy in Ibiza this year, a bass player in the house band, Ok Tokyo, at the Ibiza Rocks hotel (anybody recognise the name Ibiza Rocks? Late night indie music on Channel 4?). This guy, Jonny, turned out to be a Christian, and a few of us had a great chat in a coffee shop on our last afternoon on the Island.
Jonny talked about how nobody dreamed anymore. “Everybody has a dream - or everybody should have”, he said. He asked one English bar girl at his hotel, and her reply was “My dream is to not have to work for a living”.
His point was that he was, literally, living his dream - he had started a band with his brother, played the music he loved, and had been invited to play (for actual money!) as the house band in Ibiza Rocks for 5 weeks. Whereas Ibiza to most rockers is where you retreat your villa in the hills and snort cocaine, Jonny spent his evenings watching the sunset and chatting to the bar owners about faith.
Now I’ll admit that taking your band to a Mediterranean island in the summer is completely pie-in-the-sky stuff for most of us, and many Christians would baulk at the idea of this as your Christian ‘dream’. But how many of us actually have a specific ambition or aim? I have, like others, a vague notion of a mission bigger than myself, but for all the searching and trying my hand at different things, I am no closer to knowing how I can use my talents to serve God, or accomplish, well, anything but the economic summary I’m preparing for my big bosses.
Why can’t we pinpoint our ambition? Why do we find it tough to even identify our strengths, never mind deploy them in some sort of ‘mission field’, to join in something bigger than ourselves?
By Harrison on Aug 5, 2008
I do feel that it is a real weakness within the Church where we cannot identify what gifts we have. Perhaps it isn’t even with identification but with stepping out, manning up, growing a pair or whatever else you want to call it once we do learn what we have been given.
Not the most eloquent set of phrases ever…
By Laura Anne on Aug 6, 2008
Alastair, not sure if your last comment was directed to me or not.
It’s not so much lack of ambition as in the realisation of the last few years that God would do a far better job of being in control of my life than I do, if I’d just let him be in control!
It comes of being in a place where I was very, very career orientated and then God changing me in a whole other direction I’d never remotely dreamed of or had any experience in. Then a few years later re-taking control and pursuing a career until it almost destroyed me completely, coming back to God in pure weakness and once again to being lead down a different and unexpected path.
I know what gifts I have, and I hope to use them as much as I can in whatever purpose God has for me here and now, and I hope that I can make myself available and adapt to the changes he probably has planned when the time comes to ’step out’ once again…
…but I have no clue to what that will look like practically (yet).
For me, it’s all about trusting in a God who is far, far bigger and greater than me. And when I trust I have such peace!
By Alastair on Aug 6, 2008
No, Laura Anne, I wasn’t aiming at anyone, least of all someone I don’t know!
My thoughts are general thoughts on the issue. Certainly I appreciate that God does not clearly show us the road ahead, and we need to have a ready-and-willing attitude like yours. I also appreciate that it is easy to generalise, and easy to project my own frustrations and lack of vision / dream / ambition onto the Christian community as a whole. Yet I still think that the generalisation holds true.
I don’t have an entrepreneurial mind, so I’m mostly rubbish at dreaming things up. But allow me to get involved in ideas already circulating, and I’ll run with them. This means that I’m very excited about some of the things I’ve experienced - in particular 24-7 Prayer, and more specifically, 24-7 in Ibiza. Yet as I think about my experience, although I would go back in a heartbeat, running back there doesn’t feel like the solution; somehow I want to be involved in prayerful, missional community back at home. Right now ‘home’ is Dublin, but that can change, I have no idea whether I’ll settle here or not, in the medium-term.
I’m only a newcomer to this ambition / work / life thing. I moved from Belfast, where all the Christian I know were students, and I wish I had a pound for every time I heard the sentiment “Oh, I couldn’t work a 9-5 office job. It’s just not me.” My current response is “Suck it up”. In Dublin, most of the Christians I know are working, any many have plunged themselves into their work, be it accountancy, management or lab research - the work ethic is much different, folks have ambition in their respective careers. Now I haven’t worked out if this difference is a Belfast / Dublin Christian thing, or just a general wakening up to the reality, that, in my father’s words, “The world doesn’t owe you a living, son.”
What I can say, personally, is that I don’t have the same ambition towards my work as the folk I have met. Christian accountants are strongly suggesting I take professional banking exams, to set me in good stead; I see the logic, but I lack the desire, because it means committing to this job, this lifestyle, for another 3 years minimum, before I even begin to think about how tough the exams would be.
If I have ambition, it lies elsewhere. I’m just frustrated that, so far, precisely where it lies eludes me.
By Laura Anne on Aug 6, 2008
Hmm.
It’s a difficult one. I remember how every year I was at university I would pray…please God let me quit, I don’t want to live here anymore. Every year God would say ‘just one more year’.
I ended up there for 5 years. And possibly in the not too distant future I’ll be going back there.
What changed though in my 3rd year, was that I found something I was passionate about. It did mean that to do it, I had to do a bunch of other courses that literally reduced me to tears (Statistics and Health Economics…the thought of having to study them again still makes me shudder).
As you say it means commitment (I like your father’s phrase - ‘the world doesn’t owe you a living’). But there is no point in committing to something you don’t have a passion for. Surely then you’d be working for the sake of working as opposed to working for the sake of moving towards something.
And once you commit you should see it through to the end - to do that I think you need some fabulous friends to keep encouraging you through all the rubbish parts that you need to endure.
I think before you can find an ambition, you need to find out what you are passionate about.
By Stephen Reid on Aug 7, 2008
I was typing up a personal response to this but it hit 700 words so I have stuck it in a draft on my own blog and will finish it later.
Just a couple of things that occured to me one thing that occured to me are that Jesus choose to work through a set of mostly unambitious fishermen and even went as far as turning away a certain rich young man as he was incapable of giving up what he had achieved in this world.
Jesus was more in the habit of getting people to give up their worldy ambitions than to encourage it.
Of course I’m not saying you should sit on your backside gazing into Heaven, waiting for a message.
A particulary good book in area is the story of the guy who came up with Veggie Tales and of his great dream to serve God.
Me, Myself & Bob: A True Story about Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables
I was bought this book as a Christmas present and have never read something were I identified so much with the author. Highly, highly recommend it, couldn’t put it down.
By Alastair on Aug 7, 2008
Don’t tease us Stephen… you’re really going to post something new on your blog?
I’ll wait for your blog post (with baited breath) before I reply. I’m probably going to cook up a post of my own, it may involve Ecclesiastes Chapter 3. Just a heads up.
By Harrison on Aug 7, 2008
Stephen - Make sure and comment here again when you post to your blog so others can read it.
Alastair - Likewise.
Laurie - Mucho Gracias for the linkage!
By Stephen Reid on Aug 8, 2008
I shall hopefully finish my post tomorrow, it’s at 1600 words and I’ve now got writers block, otherwise know as Louise.
My post is more of a personal experience than an argument for or against ambition.
Although I do think that it depends on the person whether or not it’s “right” for them for be ambitious.
You can’t force it on people.
My writers block just read what I typed and retreated to the sofa in disgust.
By Laura Anne on Aug 8, 2008
Stephen, look forward to reading your post!
Liking the veggietales connection there too. I love veggietales. I feel I missed out as a child having not grown up in church… I recently found out there is a character that shares my name too. Woo hoo!
Harrison - not a problem! This post is really relevant to where I’m at just now. I also got a One Tree Hill connection in there. I love One Tree Hill…sigh…
By Stephen Reid on Aug 8, 2008
Ok I finished my post, it’s rather long but wasn’t wanting to leave anything out.
My Amibtion in Life-A Response
It’s probably less of a response and more of a separate story, but anyway.
By richard on Aug 25, 2008
You got me thinking about this one. Big Question so I have put my full thoughts on my own Blog. Suffice to say that I think Christians ought to be ambitious because God would expect nothing less of us; Christians need to be role models on how to live good lives.
As for a Christian ambition, I would like to see Christianity as being main stream in this country again - going to church as normality rather than an exception. I also believe this is possible because I trust in God and through Him we can achieve anything.
God bless you for encouraging us to examine ourselves and exploring these issues.
By Harrison on Aug 28, 2008
Thanks for your comments and the link richard - welcome to the blog!
By Patrick on Dec 23, 2008
my ambition in life is to become a footballer. i love it and i have for a long time. But i dont want to just be any footballer, i want to show everybody God’s glory through the football. When you are a footballer, people look at you and you are in the public eye and people watch you playing on the pitch. What a great opportunity to show everyone how amazing God is!
By Harrison on Dec 23, 2008
Awesome ambition Patrick - welcome to the blog!
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