A humble ambition

Wednesday March 16, 2022

A humble ambition

It's not that I've already won the prize, or that I've already achieved perfection ; but I run, to try to seize it, since I too have been seized by Jesus Christ. Philippians 3.12

Some ambitions are just the dreams of an inflated ego, but a lack of ambition can also be a chronic fear of failing shamefully in a project that is too high. Serge Tisseron writes : “My father often said : “We are fine as we are.” Some parents say to their son : “Think big”, mine advised me rather to remain modest in all things and to think “small”. The worry of “aiming too high” was recurrent with my parents. (Death of shame © Éditions Albin Michel 2019)

My own parents, for their part, revealed their lack of spiritual ambition by saying : “A jump seat in paradise is enough for us. Contentment and modesty are virtues of great value before God, but they should not hinder us in our search for God.

The ambition of the apostle Paul was not motivated by pride, but by the love he had for Jesus Christ. Let us be seized by Jesus Christ, as Paul did on the road to Damascus. When Jesus Christ seizes us, new thirsts come to live in our hearts. Let us not resist the silent call of God in our hearts, but put all our energy into responding to it.

To live closer and closer to God is a noble and humble ambition.

Alain Monclair

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Proposed reading : Letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, verses 12 to 19.

3.12 It is not that I have already won the prize, or that I have already achieved perfection; but I run, to try to seize it, since I too have been seized by Jesus Christ.

3.13 Brethren, I don't think I got it ; but I do one thing : forgetting what is behind and moving towards what is ahead,

3.14 I run towards the goal, to win the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Jesus Christ.

3.15 Let us all therefore who are grown men have this same thought ; and if you are of any other opinion in any respect, God will enlighten you on that also.

3.16 Only, at the point where we have reached, let us walk together.

3.17 Be all my imitators, brethren, and look to those who walk according to the model that you have in us.

3.18 For there are many who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ, of which I have often spoken to you, and I speak of them now still with tears.

3.19 Their end will be destruction ; their god is their belly, they put their glory in what makes them ashamed, they think only of earthly things.

Source (Live Today)