The word "ambition" keeps coming up in my own prayer life and encounters/conversations with others. Defined as an "earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction," ambition is a very fragile concept. Pauls tells us in Philippians that we are to "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit" (2:3), and James repeatedly warns of the penalties of harboring selfish ambition (specifically, disorder and every evil practice-James 3:16).
So how does one discern what is truly "selfish ambition," and what may be ambition stemming from a God-given passion? Read the same passage, James 3:13-18. Determining what is selfish ambition and what is God-given passion has to do with wisdom. God's wisdom, we know to be "first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." (James 3:17) Many of us think we have wisdom, but when it is tested in our own lives in the face of ambition, we are often challenged. Wisdom has NOTHING to do with selfish ambition, and EVERYTHING to do with humility (James 3:13-14). Humility...I think I will be forever learning to walk in that daily.
My first lesson in humility verses ambition sends me back to my junior and senior year in high school, all the way through my junior year in college. I had every ambition to become a pediatric cardiologist and spent those four or five years of my life planning to doso. I was going to be the best heart doctor the world had seen, and all with seemingly good and pure motives: to honor the memory of a peer who died suddenly of cardiac arrest during a basketball game at my high school. Every scholarship application I filled out, every univeristy or program I applied for, every class I took declared that I was going to be a pediatric cardiologist, and nothing could stop me....
...Until organic chemistry. Two and a half years into the rigor of pre-med courses at UW-Madison, and miserable with the load of science classes I was taking, the "ambitions" of my life weren't quite aligning with the God-given desires of my heart. It was tormenting me. I couldn't give up on this dream (which I thought was from God), but I couldn't live the life that seemed to be headed towards (non-stop studying, little time for ministry and in the long-term family). It broke me when I came to the reality that Medical School was never actually the plan the Lord had for me: I couldn't stay on the path I had determined to, and told everyone I was going to succeed in. However, that brokeness was the one of the best things the Lord's ever done in my life to-date.
One night during my junior year at UW I had gone to a Casting Crowns concert at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield. When the lead singer, Mark Hall, made an invititation for people to receive Christ as their Savior, he described Jesus as the Great Physician who came to heal and fix our broken hearts and make us whole. There was more to it than that, but that night I had a revelation: God's call on my life did not indeed have to do with the physical healing of hearts, but the emotional and spiritual healing of broken hearts. That night I claimed Isaiah 61:1 (The Spirit of the Lord is upon me....he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted) as my true calling. The calling He has for all of us, to do the work of an evangelist, and the specific calling He had for me in the ministry of compassion, was not found (for me) in Medical School, but was indeed the ministry of binding up the brokenhearted and continuing the work of Jesus. I did not have to give up the desire to "heal hearts," but I did have to give up any selfish ambition of having the prestigious job of a pediatric cardiologist and thinking I could continue to sacrifice my strength, health, and ministry in order to doso.
Within that same semester and a lot of difficult conversations later, I changed my major to social work. Along with choosing Jesus and marrying Adam, that is also one of the best decisions I made. Because I was willing to surrender my selfish ambition, die to my own flesh and desires (as good as they seemed), and to delight myself in HIM and trust HIM to give me the desires of my heart, I am right where He wants me in His will and calling in my life.
So, word to the "wise".... does this ambition you are pursuing have even a hint of selfishness in it? Is it in line with His word (James 3:17), is it really ALL for Him, or is there maybe more of you in this plan? Does this ambition involve pleasing people, or pleasing God? I see it proven time and again, if we delight ourselves in Him, He WILL give us the desires of our hearts. Continue to delight in Him. The rewards are great and better than your original ambitions!
