Balance-

Ambition VS Contentment

Am I the only one who struggles with severe discontentment?  It is something gnaws at me daily.  I exist with questions that pulse through my mind like a second heart beat:
    -How will I make more of an impact?
    -Why am I not further ahead?
    -When will I suddenly discover my “niche” in society?
    -Will I ever achieve significance?
    -Is the grass really greener over “there”?
On and on the questions race through my mind.  Unfortunately they don’t simply speed through my thought process and find their way out of my mind, but they bounce around in my soul like a rubber ball.  They reverberate constantly until I eventually find myself deafened by fear, worry, and dread.  Fear that my life won’t really count for anything.  Worry that I am somehow missing out on some divine calling. And dread that I am never going to grasp that ever elusive feeling of fulfillment. 

So I try to turn to some other great thinkers, contemporary and classic, to help with this struggle between ambition and contentment.  As I spend the morning reading and praying I become even more caught in the 22.  First, I read a few sections of Erwin McManus’ book Soul Cravings:
Somewhere down the road, many of us either lose our ambition, or we come to believe that ambition is a bad thing.  We were told that if we are going to be truly spiritual, we have to free ourselves from all ambition.  The tragedy, of course, is that this is not true.  Not only is ambition a good thing: it is also a God thing….
You cannot live the life God created you to live without being ambitious.  The reason your heart leaps when you see greatness is that your spirit is drawn to it.  The reason we can experience the vicarious exhilaration of a great victory or an amazing accomplishment is that the human spirit resonates with greatness.
While many of us have come to believe ambition is unhealthy, the truth is when you lose ambition, you lose your future.  When you lose your future, you lose hope.  And no one can live well without hope.  Without ambition we have no dreams worth living.  When we let our dreams die, we start dying with them. 
EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS A NEED FOR PROGRESS.

I read these words concerning ambition and my emotions proceed onto the roller coaster.  There is a certain part of me that longs for nothing more than “greatness.”  Then I have to question my motives and realize that so much of the drive is selfish ambition.  But then I really do want to help people, so it isn’t completely selfish.  I also have to agree that I truly do have this annoying, repetitive voice in my soul that is constantly beckoning me to dream big and to never be content with my current location on the “progress” scale.  But then I quickly remind myself that I am not really that gifted of a leader, communicator, writer, blah, blah, blah.   The end result is that those words that McManus intended to inspire instead paralyze.  I am frozen and stuck with a such a strange combination of feelings.  I feel guilt that I am not grateful for the blessings that I am currently experiencing.  I experience despair because I don’t think that I have the discipline and/or abilities to achieve the desires that are in my heart.  Then there is this sense of excitement because I think that there may be a day when the ambition pays off and I find that mysterious “perfect case scenario” where I am able to make some kind of world-changing investment for the kingdom of God.

But to be honest, I often wonder if it wouldn’t be healthier for me and my family if I could silence that voice.  As strange as it sounds, I often wish that I just had no further ambition.  I long to experience complete contentment.  The voice of contentment competes constantly in my soul with the voice of ambition.  It is just as loud, consistent and annoying.  So I shift away from my McManus readings and turn to an older, more classical reading, none other than the great Spurgeon:
Whatever God has made your position, or your work, abide in that, unless you are quite sure that he calls you to something else.  Let your first care be to glorify God to the utmost of your power where you are.  Fill you present sphere to his praise, and if he needs you in another he will show it you.  THIS EVENING LAY ASIDE VEXATIOUS AMBITION, AND EMBRACE PEACEFUL CONTENT.    
Ahh!  The frustration!  Most days I feel that I would trade ambition, dreams, and desires for true contentment.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be so in love with your current situation that you never had to dream about what is next?  I meet some people who have done amazing things and I am so attracted to their drive.  Then I meet some people who have achieved less outward success but are so completely content and I am equally impressed and inspired. 

So I find myself asking the question:  Can you have both ambition and contentment?  Are they mutually exclusive?  Is there any way to progress simultaneously toward both goals?  I would assume that McManus would not disagree with Spurgeon’s writings, and if Spurgeon were alive he would probably not disagree with McManus.  So the answer must be that there is a way to maintain both ambition and contentment.  The answer then must lie in the answer to so many other areas of life- BALANCE.  It seems that I must begin to learn to allow the tension that is created between these two goals to bring balance to my life. 

In retrospect Spurgeon’s last sentence, “this evening lay aside vexatious ambition, and embrace peaceful content” seeks to achieve a proper balance.  The key word my be “vexatious.”  It is defined in the Merrian-Webster dictionary as distressing, intended to harass, and full of disorder.  God-inspired ambition shouldn’t be “intended to harass.”  But that is the type of ambition that I experiences.  It is like a bully who taunts me and makes fun of my current situation.  I am guilty of repeatedly handing over my lunch money (or sense of contentment) in the face of his threats:
- The threat that I am getting too old (at 31) to make a significant impact.
- The threat that I cannot make a significant impact in my current position
- The threat that people are disappointed in me
That is unhealthy vexatious ambition and certainly doesn’t derive from the heart of God.

So now I continue my journey toward balance.  On the one hand I have God (and Erwin) beckoning me strive for greatness.  On the other I have God (and Charles) calling me to be completely devoted to my current situation.  I want to be in the middle.  I want to continue to dream but become more and more committed to my current amount of influence.  I don’t want to silence either voice, but let them produce a well-balanced follower of Christ.  Someone who is so completely fulfilled in Christ and so content in my surroundings that I am free to dream about how to make a difference and impact in the hear and now.  Vexatious ambition has caused me to be so worried about the future that I was not able to make an impact in the present.  True God-given ambition will cause us to be determined to make the most of our present and be grateful and humbled for the impact he is allowing us to make. 

Prayer:
God- help me to strike this balance.  Continue to call me to great things and continue to beckon me toward contentment.  I desperately need the tension of both voices to keep my life in balance.