#20 - Rescuing Ambition

Are you an ambitious person? I never thought of myself as particularly ambitious. I have no desire to write books, get a PhD, preach at conferences or other churches, etc. But as I look at all the effort and energy I spend on my personal disciplines, my family and my church ministry, I realized that I do have quite a few ambitions.

In Dave Harvey's book, Rescuing Ambition, he explains that we all have ambition, whether we realize it or not. We all have desires or dreams or wants or hopes. The question is, do you know what drives you and do you know how strong that drive is? "Recognizing the impulse isn't a big deal. The trick is getting a handle on how deep it runs and how much it determines what we do. This impulse is so big, it can determine how we respond to Jesus himself."

The key is not to suppress our ambitions or to crush our desires though. What we need to do is to focus our ambition or glory seeking on the only one who can truly fulfill our ambitions. "God doesn't oppose glory-seeking; he commends it. And what's more astounding, he rewards it with eternal life. But there's a condition. We must seek a certain type of glory. We're to hunger, crave, earnestly desire - to be ambitious for - the glory that comes from God." [italics his]

Harvey then unpacks how we exchange godly ambition for selfish ambition. Greatness for smallness. Our fears, our joys, our failures, our successes, our contentment and our complaints all are reflection of the glory that we are truly seeking in our hearts whether we realize it or not. But the key to godly ambition is not so much what we do for God but who we become while we seek to do things for God. Here are some gems:

• He doesn't need us to get things done, but he delights to use us, so he must shape us for his service.
• God defines productivity differently. For God, productivity is wrapped up in transformation, in who we're becoming, not in what we're accomplishing
• A good ambition becomes a selfish ambition when it's our only ambition. In the Bible that's called idolatry.
• When our inner world isn't open to scrutiny, our outer world eventually collapses. If you ever find yourself insisting your motives are unpolluted - Maybe what I said wasn't right, but my motives were pure - get out of the shadows and back to your Bible.
• "Ambitions for self may be quite modest...Ambitions for God, however, if they are to be worthy, can never be modest. There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God." John Stott
• Since Paul's ambitions were not selfish, he could live with them unfulfilled. Sure, he had dreams and desires - but they were God-focused, not Paul-focused. If they remained unsatisfied, that was God's business. So Paul was able to aspire for more while resting peacefully in what God provided. He hungered for more but was happy with less. Deferred dreams didn't eat away at him. Paul could be at peace in the present without abandoning hopes for the future.
• "If we have not what we desire, we have more than we deserve." Thomas Watson
• In the shadow of failure we find humbling grace. We learn that we're limited. We discover that God is more interested in who we're becoming than in what we're achieving. We find our definition not in our failures or successes but in Christ.
• Today many groups unite around a common interest, sprinkle in some Scripture, and view it as their church...I think that happens a lot today for some believers. Rather than fostering a Christianity lived out in the church, some Christians unintentionally replace the church and encourage detachment. That's not biblical Christianity.
• "There's a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday mornings." John Piper

Harvey concludes the books with something I have never given much thought - succession. I have never been the senior pastor before and have never had the opportunity to even consider succession. But I came to realize that if I want to provide for a God-glorifying and smooth succession to the next generation, I need to work on that now.

"My generation started this church, laid its foundations, established its culture, and developed its vision. And we have the potential to turn all that into a monument to the past. The test of a good church is its ability to retain its core biblical values as it passes from one generation to the next. The test of good church leadership is to entrust what we love to younger men - and let them lead it...We're at the moment of decision on that right now. We all feel it. Do we look back and hold onto what had so much meaning for us in the heady days of our youth? Or do we prepare for the future and turn the thing over to leaders who see it with clearer vision than we possess?" One of the pastors at Harvey's church.

After 19 years as Senior Pastor, Harvey turned his role over to a man 20 year his junior. C.J. Mahaney did a similar thing for Josh Harris. I have always thought that you are in your best ministry years in your 50's. You have the experience and perspective of 20+ years of ministry. Would I be willing to disciple and groom someone to take over my role in 20 years when I am in my prime ministry years? The last thing I want is to build my life to be a monument to the past.

I recommend this book. It had lots of good thoughts and probed into my heart in uncomfortably profitable ways. Harvey's style is light and fairly humorous which is not my personal favorite, but he uses it in a way that takes the edge of his more serious moments.