The Shadow of Ambition

Editor’s note: 10 days ago, we shared from Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson’s new book Fighting Shadows: Overcoming 7 Lies That Keep Men from Becoming Fully Alive that was so well-received that we wanted to bring you more! You can read it again here. This book belongs on the bedside table of every guy you love. Men need to know God’s vision in order to walk and live in their strengths and gifts! Enjoy this excerpt.

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The Lie: Ambition is fuel for personal success.

The Truth: Ambition is a gift for Kingdom impact.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. ~ William Butler Yeats

A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. ~ Marcus Aurelius 

We know of no word that causes greater confusion in the hearts of men today than the word ambition. For some it touches the deepest passion of the heart and shakes them out of bed in the morning. For others it’s a word that invokes shame and obligation, naming another thing they lack. It can represent another reminder that they don’t have the definitive factor that attracts women and earns respect with men.

It’s hard for a man to know what to do with his ambition these days because the channels for healthy expression seem to be blocked. The word ambition can trigger vision and passion, or it can paralyze and overwhelm. What exactly is a man to do with his ambition? What do you do with yours?

Some argue that your ambition should focus on making an impact — you should seek to make the largest difference possible on the greatest amount of people. But often, when you look behind the scenes, there is a trail of wounded hearts and buried bodies at the price of success. In our desire to do great things, we can do great damage. 

Some argue that we should focus on influence; we should seek to gain as wide an audience as possible; we should build a platform to distribute our perspective and positions; we should seek to mold and shape the views of others with the force of our lives. But change without direction is wasted energy. Change for change’s sake can lead to exhaustion without progress.

Others suggest we should focus on none of these things. Ambition is toxic, they say. It’s the driving factor in so much of the brokenness and pain in the world. History is the battlefield of ambition, and success is written with the blood of losers. And it seems there is some truth to this. The progress in our world today has come with unintended consequences. Kingdoms are often built with tears. Pastors use volunteers to build churches, influencers use followers to build platforms, brands use customers to build fortunes. So many of the calls for justice today are calls to acknowledge and repair the damage done by aggressive men who built their legacy without thought of the human cost.

Ambition and Spirituality

Donald Whitney said, “One way to simplify your spirituality is to clarify your ambition.”1

Have you examined your relationship to ambition as a man? It’s not often talked about in the context of our faith, but what we want and how hard we chase it are at the core of our spiritual lives.

You don’t want to be paralyzed by fear and let your potential rot in the soil of amusements, and you don’t want to be an ego-driven jerk seeking success at any costs. Is it possible to cultivate godly ambition? Is it even good to wake the dragon of desire in our hearts?

Ambition is not often talked about in the context of our faith, but what we want and how hard we chase it are at the core of our spiritual lives.

Worldly Ambition

One of the cautions about ambition is the way it influences how we treat others. It can distort our perspective of those around us. It can force a competitive filter over all we say and do. James K. A. Smith noted that ambition in a worldly sense is defined by two main marks: domination and attention.2

Domination makes us feel like we must win at all costs. It’s not enough for us to do our best; we have to measure ourselves against others. Only when our best is better than others’ do we get a sense of accomplishment. When I (Jon) moved to the United States, one of the first things that struck me was the aggressive language surrounding success. When someone does well, we talk about them killing it, crushing it, slaying it. These words are heavy. Winner-loser, victory-defeat, life-death — aggression without compassion seems to be the price of success.

One of the most confusing things about the disciples in the Gospels was their desire to dominate. It seemed Jesus’ personal invitation to be His apostles was not enough. In Luke 22 this came into embarrassing focus. Jesus gathered His friends to celebrate the Passover, His last meal with them. He imbued His life into the meal, telling them the bread and body represented his gift to the world. He washed their feet as a servant of love.

And what was the disciples’ response? Humility? Gratitude? No. Verse 24 notes,

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.

Their need for human greatness overshadowed the Messiah. Their need to dominate distorted their discipleship.

The second mark of worldly ambition is the need for recognition. In modern life it’s not enough to win; we need an audience for our accomplishments. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale from 1886 to 1898, warned graduating students against this and the “love of distinction.” He wrote, “But among all the passions which mislead, endanger, and harass the mind, none is more hostile to its peace, none more blind, none more delirious than the love of distinction.”3

Dwight would be grieved at how much our modern world is built on seeking distinction. Ambition demands attention, and to get attention we must distinguish ourselves from the masses. This introduces a comparative and performative element in all we do. A whole generation of men has been raised on the need for distinction. In a recent study, 86 percent of young Americans said they want to be social media influencers — kill and crush, notice and narcissism, domination and recognition — a delirious pursuit to post everything online.

The shadow of ambition is standing tall over a generation of men.

Resisting Ambition

With so much damage done by worldly ambition, it may seem wise for Christians to banish it from our lives. Maybe we should focus on other virtues that don’t cause so much damage. But Smith noted this kind of overaction can do its own kind of damage:

• If you keep walking around the phenomenon of ambition, you’ll start to note a couple of features. First, the opposite of ambition is not humility; it is sloth, passivity, timidity, and complacency. We sometimes like to comfort ourselves by imagining that the ambitious are prideful and arrogant so that those of us who never risk, never aspire, never launch out into the deep get to wear the moralizing mantle of humility. But this imagining is often just thin cover for a lack of courage, even laziness. Playing it safe isn’t humble.4

The truth is when it comes to your life, you are not at war with ambition; you are in a war for ambition — godly ambition. Without godly ambition you will collapse back into a cocoon of self. Without godly ambition your vision will be reduced to your own wants and needs. You won’t recognize it, but instead of seeking first the Kingdom of God, you will seek the kingdom of the American dream.

God has more for you than shallow ambition and a worldly version of success. God has more for you than a life of false humility and shallow pursuits. God wants to fill you with a soul-stirring kind of holy ambition.

1. Donald Whitney, Simplify Your Spiritual Life: Spiritual Disciplines for the Overwhelmed (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2014), Kindle.
2. James K. A. Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing, 2019), 81.
3. Timothy Dwight, “Sermon XXVII: On the Love of Distinction,” in Sermons, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes, 1828), 512.
4. Smith, On the Road, 78.

Excerpted with permission from Fighting Shadows by Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson, copyright Jefferson Bethke and Jon Tyson.

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Your Turn

Men, this book was written specifically for you because it’s us who the world and the enemy primarily target with the woo of ambition. What we want and how hard we chase it are at the core of our spiritual lives. Do you godly ambition in your life or false humility and shallow pursuits? How hard do you want to go after the purposes of the Kingdom of God? ~ Devotionals Daily