Blind Ambition

What are you setting your sights on?

Many of us have been taught that we must strive to be successful at something at any cost.  And, usually that "something" is a career that yields a high income, fame or fortune. 

In the beginning, we may strive to be "successful" to please our families, but once some of us get a taste of success, we start to enjoy the notions and the perks of success enough to chase after it on our own.

MSN cites a University of Notre Dame study in which lead researcher Timothy Judge says, "Ambitious people do achieve more successful careers. But that doesn't seem to translate into leading happier or healthier lives."

Perhaps instead of striving to find success at any cost, we should be striving to lead "happier or healthier lives" and let success find us.

God has given each of us gifts to be used for His glory and for the betterment of our and other's lives. Why then do we find it so hard to believe that those gifts are the most direct path to success?

Why would God give us the gift of writing but send us to a job that's all about crunching numbers?  In some circumstances He might do that to work out patience, trust, faith, or something along those lines.  But, for the most part, I suspect that it is not God sending us on wayward assignments, it's us. Think about it.  Would God's plan for our success include stabbing others in the back or advancing at someone else's expense?

For example, the whole problem with the money changers in the temple was not that they were there conducting legitimate business.  Everything took place in and around the temple, including business.  It was the central hub of life.  The problem was that the moneychangers turned a real need into an opportunity to inflate their prices and disproportionately increase their personal "success" as businessmen.

In God's economy, one person's success should not be built heavily on the stressful sacrifices of another.  Certainly, business owners are expected to make a profit, but when were on the right course, everyone wins.  But, we steer ourselves off course when we begin to measure success by any other standard than our ability to line up with God's plan for our lives.  This is not only true for careers, but for family relationships.

Some people recognize that they are destined to marry, but quickly settle for violent or emotionally abusive relationships without being still long enough to hear God say "Yes," "No," or "Not Now."

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.  Psalm 32:8

No matter how good our natural or corrected vision is, God's ability to "see" is exponentially keener than ours.  So, why do we lean on our own understanding of what we see regarding our future success when God has declared "I will guide thee with mine eye."

Let's face it, when we consider some of the detours and derailments we experienced following our or someone else's definition of success, we have been operating with blind ambition.  In other words, we have been clueless about what we should really be striving for, yet God tells us that we "have not because [we] ask not."

If you are unhappy or unfulfilled where you are in life, talk to God about it, and take the time to listen for His response. I did that in 2001 and it resulted in me leaving my "good Government job" and paycheck to go into ministry. 

As a result, I have had many lean days, but God has always provided.  And, when I consider all of the people I have been able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with or offer a timely word of exhortation in a time of despair, I have developed a different, richer perspective on "success"-- and success is completely separate from what or whether someone decides to pay me. 

Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.  2 Corinthians 5:9

When we make it our aim to please God, success will find us, for then "the eyes of [our] understanding [are] being enlightened; that [we] may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints...." Ephesians 1:18

Viewing life through anything less than the lenses of God's enlightened vision would simply be blind ambition.

BNcouraged!

Rev. Karen