April 21, 1998
Ambition. If you do not have it, you will never make anything of your life.
At least, that is current popular opinion. Ambition keeps people going, keeps us committed to excellence. It makes us more inventive, creative, competitive. Without it, we would sit back and let the rest of the world walk all over us on their way to success.
Some ambitions are admirable, like being a good friend, beating your personal best in the Olympics, engineering a new and needed product, discovering new cures or getting an education.
Some ambitions are questionable, like holding the world’s record for the largest ball of string, being the first person to eat a bicycle, collecting a garage full of bottle caps, or like Cool Hand Luke—eating thirty-nine hard-boiled eggs.
Some ambitions are dangerous, such as walking across Niagara Falls on a rope, jumping over semi-trailers with a motorcycle, parachuting from the Trade Center or sticking your head in the mouths of lions.
Some ambitions are without regard for anyone else’s life or well-being, like possessing another person’s spouse, getting a promotion by having an employee fired, or setting speed records with the family car while all of them are in it.
Some ambitions are misplaced. One example was the consuming drive of Agrippina, mother of Nero who was determined to place her boy on the throne of Rome. Seeking the counsel of soothsayers, she was told, “Nero will rule, but he will kill his mother.”
Undaunted, she replied, “Let him kill me then.” Through his mother’s scheming, Nero did become the Emperor of Rome but five years later he ordered his mother’s death.
Most people would think twice if their ambitions would destroy them, but selfish extremists rarely do. Out to conquer any obstacle, they are obsessed with reaching their goals, having their way, tearing down all obstacles. If anyone offers them contrary advice, they ignore it. If others are damaged, they blame them and say they “should get out of my way.”
We condemn selfishly ambitious people, not for their desire to do or be something or to achieve, but for their motivation. It is all for themselves. No one else will benefit. In the end, neither will they. By the end, I mean in the day when God evaluates their lives.
God is not impressed with selfish ambition. Galatians 5 lists it along with other sins that characterize the lives of those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. Why is it so wrong? According to the Bible description of sin, all people are “like sheep, who have gone astray” and who have “turned to our own way.” Selfish ambition is a visible picture of doing our own thing without any regard for others or for God.
God did not intend we be selfish. He created us in His image and likeness so we could be a visible reflection of Him. When we are driven by selfish ambition, we cannot fulfill His major purpose for us.
God is not selfish. He proved it by coming to earth and taking our punishment for sin on Himself, dying in our place that we might have eternal life. A selfish God would simply say, “Oh if that is the way they want to be, let them go their own way and see what it gets them.”
Nero was a despot who used human torches to light his garden at night. Had Agripinna been more like God intended, she may have looked in the Bible for her life goals and been motivated to teach her son how to love people in generosity and kindness. Instead, he not only killed thousands of other people but his own mother.
So much for selfish ambition.
Showing posts with label God's plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's plan. Show all posts
Friday, May 26, 2017
Monday, February 1, 2016
The Greatest Good ............. Parables 387
September 14, 1993
Many a child has heard the proverb, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” particularly after getting caught in a lie meant to deliver themselves from the consequences of some other wrong they did.
Like all proverbs, this one is generally true. The closest exception I know of was when our house contractor put an outlet and switches where a cupboard addition would cover them up (making their location illegal) and misjudged the size of a closet in the front hall.
They thought they would have to rip out a huge area of ceramic tile to correct the first wrong but when they opened up the wall on the opposite side to fix the closet, they exposed the electrical wiring for the kitchen problem. They easily fixed both at the same time, but since both errors were costly to the builder and a nuisance to us, we still have to conclude two wrongs are still two wrongs.
Wrong is also wrong when disaster strikes in other, more extreme, ways. The optimists around us may say, “It will work out okay,” and sometimes it does, but unexpected financial reverses, natural disasters, traffic accidents, sudden deaths, personal failures and moral downfalls can never be called right. Adding two of them together doesn’t help at all towards making them anything but wrong.
However, that does not mean good is left totally out of the equation. A favorite passage of Scripture, Romans 8:28, affirms that God can do something about the wrongs. It says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Since “all things” includes tragic losses, illnesses, or other dark times in our lives, well-meaning people sometimes use this verse to try to comfort us. If we feel they are saying the wrong is good, or good for us in some way, their words hurt, and so they should; that is not what God is saying in Romans 8:28.
Pain and suffering are not His idea. Wrong things came into the world with sin as part of the package. God hates sin and He does not take pleasure in affliction or death. He would never say, “this wrong thing is good for you.” He is not cruel or sadistic.
What Romans 8:28 does say is that God can use all things, good or bad, right or wrong, for our good. In other words, wrong is never right but by the grace of God, it does not have to have the final word.
The promise of verse 28 makes more sense when we compare the last phrase “according to His purpose” with the next verse which says, “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son....”
In plainer English, this says God knew ahead of time about all those who would become Christians, and with that knowledge it is His plan to change them to be like Jesus Christ. His power is so great that He is able to use anything that happens to us to do it.
We need to remember God draws a line between right and wrong and never changes one into the other. Nor is it His goal that all the dirty deals of life and the wrongs that slap us down cause us to be defeated or bitter. Instead, He longs for our good. What better goal could He have, or what higher good could happen to us than becoming more like Jesus?
Many a child has heard the proverb, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” particularly after getting caught in a lie meant to deliver themselves from the consequences of some other wrong they did.
Like all proverbs, this one is generally true. The closest exception I know of was when our house contractor put an outlet and switches where a cupboard addition would cover them up (making their location illegal) and misjudged the size of a closet in the front hall.
They thought they would have to rip out a huge area of ceramic tile to correct the first wrong but when they opened up the wall on the opposite side to fix the closet, they exposed the electrical wiring for the kitchen problem. They easily fixed both at the same time, but since both errors were costly to the builder and a nuisance to us, we still have to conclude two wrongs are still two wrongs.
Wrong is also wrong when disaster strikes in other, more extreme, ways. The optimists around us may say, “It will work out okay,” and sometimes it does, but unexpected financial reverses, natural disasters, traffic accidents, sudden deaths, personal failures and moral downfalls can never be called right. Adding two of them together doesn’t help at all towards making them anything but wrong.
However, that does not mean good is left totally out of the equation. A favorite passage of Scripture, Romans 8:28, affirms that God can do something about the wrongs. It says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Since “all things” includes tragic losses, illnesses, or other dark times in our lives, well-meaning people sometimes use this verse to try to comfort us. If we feel they are saying the wrong is good, or good for us in some way, their words hurt, and so they should; that is not what God is saying in Romans 8:28.
Pain and suffering are not His idea. Wrong things came into the world with sin as part of the package. God hates sin and He does not take pleasure in affliction or death. He would never say, “this wrong thing is good for you.” He is not cruel or sadistic.
What Romans 8:28 does say is that God can use all things, good or bad, right or wrong, for our good. In other words, wrong is never right but by the grace of God, it does not have to have the final word.
The promise of verse 28 makes more sense when we compare the last phrase “according to His purpose” with the next verse which says, “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son....”
In plainer English, this says God knew ahead of time about all those who would become Christians, and with that knowledge it is His plan to change them to be like Jesus Christ. His power is so great that He is able to use anything that happens to us to do it.
We need to remember God draws a line between right and wrong and never changes one into the other. Nor is it His goal that all the dirty deals of life and the wrongs that slap us down cause us to be defeated or bitter. Instead, He longs for our good. What better goal could He have, or what higher good could happen to us than becoming more like Jesus?
Friday, July 3, 2015
Making Plans .............. Parables 295
November 26, 1991
Last week’s mail brought a new catalog full of planning calendars designed especially for people with so many business appointments and activities they cannot keep track of them any other way. For a fee, one day, one week, or one month can be seen at a glance or at the turn of a page.
Personally, I find these calendars terrific for a homemaker-student-writer too. No matter how little or how much is on my agenda, it is far easier to remember if it is written in my book instead of stored somewhere in my brain. Besides, if most of my “plan-to” items are not committed to paper but merely left to good intentions, they somehow never get accomplished. Planning to do them – and writing down the plan – makes the thing somewhat more certain.
However, the Bible has a thing or two to say about planning. One statement goes something like this: “Hey, you people who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,’ don’t you realize you have no idea what will happen tomorrow...?’”
James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote that. Was he suggesting that Christians should never make any plans? After all, if we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, why plan?
If that is what James means, I’m in trouble. One of my college classes is Principles of Administration and I have a major assignment due next week. It requires that I make a Five-Year Plan for my life. I must use a chart of some sort, base it on a purpose statement, outline various objectives, add goals for reaching those objectives, and include standards by which I can measure whether or not the plan is carried out. This assignment is a challenge. I have spent the past year essentially living one day at a time. Now I MUST think ahead, and in detail.
First, I need to settle the issue James raises about planning. The rest of the passage says “our lives are like a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away,” like a puff of smoke. In other words, most of us are relatively insignificant in the overall scheme of things, at least as far as our own plans go. I might go somewhere, buy, sell, and make a profit, but when measured by God in light of eternity, plans that are designed to profit only me are really not very important – at least not for long and not to anyone else but me.
James then adds; “Instead (of making your own plans) you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”
James is not putting down buying, selling, or make a profit... he is just pointing out that if God says to do otherwise, we are foolish to make such plans. He says ignoring His will in favor of our own is “boasting in arrogance and all such boasting is evil” (verse 16).
So what can I include in my five-year plan that will not put me out of the will of God? James gives a final clue in verse 17: “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
James says acts of goodness must be included in the plan. I already know WHY they must be planned: unless I think ahead and prepare to do unselfish things for others, my schedule will rapidly fill up with activity designed for me, for my profit only. Unselfish goodness is left out, also vanishing like a puff of smoke.
So my professor in Principles of Administration is wise. He did not misinterpret James. Instead, he has thought of a way to help those who take his class to make the first step towards godly living – planning it in advance.
Last week’s mail brought a new catalog full of planning calendars designed especially for people with so many business appointments and activities they cannot keep track of them any other way. For a fee, one day, one week, or one month can be seen at a glance or at the turn of a page.
Personally, I find these calendars terrific for a homemaker-student-writer too. No matter how little or how much is on my agenda, it is far easier to remember if it is written in my book instead of stored somewhere in my brain. Besides, if most of my “plan-to” items are not committed to paper but merely left to good intentions, they somehow never get accomplished. Planning to do them – and writing down the plan – makes the thing somewhat more certain.
However, the Bible has a thing or two to say about planning. One statement goes something like this: “Hey, you people who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,’ don’t you realize you have no idea what will happen tomorrow...?’”
James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote that. Was he suggesting that Christians should never make any plans? After all, if we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, why plan?
If that is what James means, I’m in trouble. One of my college classes is Principles of Administration and I have a major assignment due next week. It requires that I make a Five-Year Plan for my life. I must use a chart of some sort, base it on a purpose statement, outline various objectives, add goals for reaching those objectives, and include standards by which I can measure whether or not the plan is carried out. This assignment is a challenge. I have spent the past year essentially living one day at a time. Now I MUST think ahead, and in detail.
First, I need to settle the issue James raises about planning. The rest of the passage says “our lives are like a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away,” like a puff of smoke. In other words, most of us are relatively insignificant in the overall scheme of things, at least as far as our own plans go. I might go somewhere, buy, sell, and make a profit, but when measured by God in light of eternity, plans that are designed to profit only me are really not very important – at least not for long and not to anyone else but me.
James then adds; “Instead (of making your own plans) you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”
James is not putting down buying, selling, or make a profit... he is just pointing out that if God says to do otherwise, we are foolish to make such plans. He says ignoring His will in favor of our own is “boasting in arrogance and all such boasting is evil” (verse 16).
So what can I include in my five-year plan that will not put me out of the will of God? James gives a final clue in verse 17: “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
James says acts of goodness must be included in the plan. I already know WHY they must be planned: unless I think ahead and prepare to do unselfish things for others, my schedule will rapidly fill up with activity designed for me, for my profit only. Unselfish goodness is left out, also vanishing like a puff of smoke.
So my professor in Principles of Administration is wise. He did not misinterpret James. Instead, he has thought of a way to help those who take his class to make the first step towards godly living – planning it in advance.
Monday, March 31, 2014
My plan or God's? .................... Parables 099
“This week is going to be different. I am going to set some goals and get something done...”
And from that point on, the whole world seems to go haywire: interruptions, unexpected circumstances, pressures, choices; together they carve out a big chunk from well-laid plans and nothing happens according to what was hoped. What was your week like. Plodding along or never a dull moment? If it was like mine, you might wonder if planning has any value at all!
But the unexpected is not unusual -- it is part of life. We try to get a handle on management of it and sometimes do, but most of the time the unexpected is to be expected. Some thrive on it but many people do not like changes because, unless we can comfortably keep our heads stuck in the sand, change forces us to change.
One favorite verse concerning circumstances is Romans 8:28: “God works all things together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose...”
Those who know this promise cling to it when life turns upside-down yet the thoughtful reader should go on to the next verse which states just exactly what God has in mind when He says that He “works all things for good” in a Christian’s life. Verse 29 says “... for those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son...”
“All things” are purposed by God for change... change from what we are like to what He is like -- and that is very good! That makes change not merely vital to our Christian experience but it is our destiny. (See I John 3:1-3).
Once a great sculptor began work on a huge piece of marble, intending to carve a magnificent horse. When asked how he knew what to carve from the piece and what to leave, he said, “That’s easy. I just take off everything that doesn’t look like a horse.”
And that is just what God is doing in the lives of those who love Him -- carving away everything that is not like Jesus Christ... using, along with His Word, all events of life like a chisel to carve and conform us. he intends to remove chucks of selfishness, pride, and rebellion, breaking them away and leaving the pure beauty of the living Christ for all to see.
Why does it work? Simply because each trial, each pressure-situation, calls from us a response. Will it be the typical human one of resistance to change, resentment and bitterness? Or will it be in obedience to the One who lives within us and desires to make Himself visible in all we say and do? When I make plans and they are changed by circumstances outside of my control, it is not always easy to remember the purposes God has in “all things.” But when I think about this promise and cooperate with the Master sculptor, the pain of change changes to the excitement of a transformed life. His promise concerning what He will do if I yield to His sculpting tool becomes a far better plan than those of my own making.
It is not that prayerful planning and time-management are a waste; neither is taking time to attend to interruptions. What is wasteful is failing to yield to the hand of God, the Sovereign Sculptor of my destiny.
And from that point on, the whole world seems to go haywire: interruptions, unexpected circumstances, pressures, choices; together they carve out a big chunk from well-laid plans and nothing happens according to what was hoped. What was your week like. Plodding along or never a dull moment? If it was like mine, you might wonder if planning has any value at all!
But the unexpected is not unusual -- it is part of life. We try to get a handle on management of it and sometimes do, but most of the time the unexpected is to be expected. Some thrive on it but many people do not like changes because, unless we can comfortably keep our heads stuck in the sand, change forces us to change.
One favorite verse concerning circumstances is Romans 8:28: “God works all things together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose...”
Those who know this promise cling to it when life turns upside-down yet the thoughtful reader should go on to the next verse which states just exactly what God has in mind when He says that He “works all things for good” in a Christian’s life. Verse 29 says “... for those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son...”
“All things” are purposed by God for change... change from what we are like to what He is like -- and that is very good! That makes change not merely vital to our Christian experience but it is our destiny. (See I John 3:1-3).
Once a great sculptor began work on a huge piece of marble, intending to carve a magnificent horse. When asked how he knew what to carve from the piece and what to leave, he said, “That’s easy. I just take off everything that doesn’t look like a horse.”
And that is just what God is doing in the lives of those who love Him -- carving away everything that is not like Jesus Christ... using, along with His Word, all events of life like a chisel to carve and conform us. he intends to remove chucks of selfishness, pride, and rebellion, breaking them away and leaving the pure beauty of the living Christ for all to see.
Why does it work? Simply because each trial, each pressure-situation, calls from us a response. Will it be the typical human one of resistance to change, resentment and bitterness? Or will it be in obedience to the One who lives within us and desires to make Himself visible in all we say and do? When I make plans and they are changed by circumstances outside of my control, it is not always easy to remember the purposes God has in “all things.” But when I think about this promise and cooperate with the Master sculptor, the pain of change changes to the excitement of a transformed life. His promise concerning what He will do if I yield to His sculpting tool becomes a far better plan than those of my own making.
It is not that prayerful planning and time-management are a waste; neither is taking time to attend to interruptions. What is wasteful is failing to yield to the hand of God, the Sovereign Sculptor of my destiny.
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