Ambition: It’s Time to Get Moving

There’s one thing standing between you and the life you want—one of adventure, transcendence, and meaning, a life that literally changes the world beneath your feet. It’s passivity... and it’s a damn lie. I’m not using that four-letter word lightly. It’s exactly what I mean. That lie will damn your efforts before you even begin. It will keep you pacified with the “good” when the “great” is still out there. It paves the road to a life of safety when what the world needs are men willing to move—to take risks, fail forward, and die with sweat on their brow.

At 55 years of age, society tells me to sit on the couch and be comfortable. But passivity won’t push your life forward. If a man doesn’t step into discomfort and challenge, if he doesn’t embrace his God-breathed holy ambition within him, his life will be stale because he settled for less than what God intended. No matter how old you are, the lies of a passive life are everywhere:

“It’s better to be safe than sorry”
“God helps those who are good, so I’ll just wait for the right time to come”
“You should be content with where you are instead of pushing into the next frontier”

Loserliness has never been next to godliness. God wants you to win (1 Corinthians 9:24). No hero in the Bible, no man who ever made a lasting impact on the planet, did so without a drive for more. We call that drive ambition. It’s not a dirty word—it’s a virtue.

I’ve heard ambition compared to a weed, a dangerous temptation that will take over, choking out everything else that matters. But that’s another half-truth. There are two types of ambition. Selfish ambition is exactly that, a destructive focus on self. But holy ambition, a focus on pushing forward the things of God, brings life to everything it touches. Like a weapon or a tool, ambition can be used for good or bad. It’s all about intent.

We all know the symptoms of unchecked selfish ambition. We see it in the news every day, and as a pastor, I personally know men who’ve followed their self-focused desires to the destruction of their jobs, families, even their very lives. But from my vantage point, I see much more of the flip side: good men letting their ambition die. Most of us are being slaughtered by papercuts. The unchanging, day-after-day grind, on a path that leads to nowhere. Fear of stepping out of bounds and being disqualified has caused us to stop taking ground. If your life is going to matter, that has to stop. And it has to stop now.

The antidote to passivity is aggression. That’s another dirty word in our culture. When I use it, I don’t mean men who are throwing their weight around, dominating everyone and everything around them to get their way at all costs. Aggression is merely the willingness to move. It’s defaulting to action instead of idling. Ambition is aggression pointed in a specific direction. Here’s the good news: you don’t have to go out and find ambition. It’s not available in a book or a podcast or a Masterclass. God’s already planted it deep within you. It’s that nagging feeling that there might be something more; that desire to climb the mountain you’ve never summited; the drive to take a frontier before you, whether it’s financial, relational, or spiritual.

Ambition changes things, it changes personal and family trajectories, it changes communities, and, when acted upon, it will most certainly change you. Almost every morning, I pray the same prayer: “God, if you have anything big going on today, I want to be part of it.” That prayer comes from a place of ambition. I want to accomplish great things. I want to squeeze every single ounce of opportunity out of the life that I’ve been given. I want to look back on my years and know that I left everything out on the field—not to build my name or brand or reputation, but to honor a God who expects a return on investment.

Stop listening to the voices of a passive culture that insists ambition is dangerous. It’s a gift from a God who loves you, and expects you to use it well. Where’s ambition leading you? and Why haven’t you started yet? It’s time to get moving.

Read more of Ambition: It’s Time to Get Moving by Brian Tome in Kinsmen Journal Volume 1 — Purchase here.