Another surprise that shook
my foundation of beliefs was the idea of ambition. For years, I carried a
boatload of “need to get ahead” because of my personal upbringing. I am sure
there are other reasons for other people. But for me, being from a broken home left
me with the belief my broken family achieved little. I know I am wrong about
that now. However, in my thinking back then, I was the only one from a family
of five and an extended family of five that had finished a college degree. I
valued education as a way to move out of bad circumstances. Whoopee!
Well, part of me still believes that some children from
broken homes are left with an ambitious energy that says, “I’m going to amount
to something, whether anyone else thinks I’m any good or not.” I realize the
pull can help you accomplish stuff, but it may not always be honest. Although pulled
by an ambition to achieve, I discovered that any reward of “doingness” did not
always guarantee a peaceful “beingness.” Building a successful reputation did
not always reduce my anxieties and fears. And of course, I’m not implying that
all ambition is bad.
The
true change came when I admitted that with many issues, I acted cowardly or at
least, with hidden truths. Of course, no one dared call me coward. If someone
met me head-on with something, I would fight. But I was not choosing the more
subtle and better issues of mercy, kindness, gratitude through the right kind
of peace. I felt pulled constantly. When you feel pulled, you push back. And I
often wondered, because I lacked a positive relationship with an earthly
father, did a heavenly father even like me? On the one hand, I wanted to please
my heavenly father, but on the other hand I would rebel at His word because I
feared Him. It was not the fear, God might send a thunder bolt and zap me. It
was more the anxiety He would ask me to give up my true buried self.
Also, what kept me perplexed was that the very problems of
self-centered motives and burying stuff to avoid [which now seems cowardly to
me] were the actual success strategies in the world of competition. The world
says, “Do anything to maintain a good self-image. Take care of number one.
Don’t be too humble; come out strong.”
The
world thinking continues with “avoid
issues that will corrupt number one. Don’t show too much mercy. You’ll be
viewed as weak. Hang on to certain prejudices to keep on top of the ladder of
importance. Don’t humble yourself to any because then, you might have to be grateful.
Stay focused with your ambition goals
so you get what you want and will be thought of as an achiever. Stay aloof so
you won’t be too vulnerable.”
Nothing
is more seductive than a misdirected ambition, one that strives for praise and
power in whatever form it can pursue. Those who waste life in various forms
[life or death] are traveling the path of misinterpreted ambition. So many of
us Christians get caught up in misunderstanding acceptable ambition [ the need
to go beyond ourselves] such that determining who is Christian today and who is
not becomes clouded. Christians and non-Christians alike follow too many
self-motivated, dishonest goals and those goals tend to achieve the same. [more to follow]
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