Hopes, Ambition and Aggression ...

Friday, Nov 11, 2011. What ambitions may I have? What ambitions are good for me and my life? What ambitions are bad? And how do they fit to the Christian attitude of faith in the Lord?

What Ambitions may I have? …

What ambitions may I have? Some years ago there was a book which got a lot of publicity. It talked about the adventurous attitude of men. It talked about understanding the man in the man, his desire to be wild. We could also talk about his ambitions, about his desire to do something, to reach tough goals. Aggression is a part of human character, and its target is to reach something, to approach tough goals, to fight and gain victory. What ambitions may I have? What goals should I try to reach?

We want to have tough goals. And we want to expand. When you have a company which sells some product, you want to increase your sales. You want to go into another country and sell the product there. You want to defeat your competitor and be better, of higher quality, cheaper. All that includes ambition, it includes aggression and clear goals. It includes the will to fight and to reach something!

How do our aggressions and ambitions fit to a Christian faith? Is it allowed to be a successfull salesman, a victorious company owner with a company which is much better than its competitors in gaining market share on a global scale? What does God say to all of this? Or should Christians stay out of it?

A humble mind …

God has a humble mind. Jesus shows the character of God in breadth and depth. But he also shows aggression and clear ambitions, when it comes to God's kingdom. He faught against the Pharisees - not with physical power, but with words. He had his special way to fight!

Jesus is giving us new and very ambitious goals. He wants faith and justice to spread, he wants love to reign. He is asking us, to join the team and to put our efforts into his kingdom. But of course, we stay a part of this world, and as such we have our professions, our duties, our responsibilities …

As a Christian I have struggled with this question of ambition for quite a while. Is it a goal conflict, to try to fully work in God's kingdom and at the same time be a sincere scientist, a company leader, a leader in a big operational center with ambitious goals? And there is some conflict, in terms of time and effort. But the conflict is resolved when we fully integrate our professional activities into our faith life. They are not separate, they are part of the story. God sends Christians back into normal life, to believe there, to live in the middle of society, full of faith and led by the holy spirit. That is a very ambitious challenge - go wild in the spirit of the Lord! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts