AMBITION!

A study in the Journal of Consumer Research reports that ambition makes you happier!

Study subjects, 134 in all, were part of an experiment that involved them picking stocks, fixing a target goal—a rate of return that would be satisfactory—and then finding out how happy they later were with the actual financial yields of their portfolios. Measuring the level of satisfaction with achieved goals, it was found that those who had set high goals for themselves were happier. Ambition makes you happier!

“The moral of the story,” observed University of California-Riverside professor Cecile K. Cho, “is don’t sell yourself short. Aim high.”

Apparently safe bets are less valuable. One’s satisfaction is somewhat reduced once the safe and easier goal has been met, since it didn’t cost one much to attain it. On the other had if one aims high—a risky shot—and achieves it, satisfaction is much greater, since the cost was also greater.

Aim high. How high? As children of God, we have one grand ambition:

Therefore we also have as our ambition,

whether at home or absent,

to be pleasing to Him.

2 Corinthians 5:9

This is the essence of Paul’s ministry, to see his flock pleasing God.

We have not ceased to pray for you

and to ask that you may be filled

with the knowledge of His will

in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

so that you will walk in a manner

worthy of the Lord,

to please Him in all respects ….

Colossians 1:9–10

How exactly does one go about pleasing God? Here’s Peter’s answer:

Applying all diligence,

in your faith supply moral excellence,

and in your moral excellence, knowledge,

and in your knowledge, self-control,

and in your self-control, perseverance,

and in your perseverance, godliness,

and in your godliness, brotherly kindness,

and in your brotherly kindness, love.

For if these qualities are yours

and are increasing,

they render you neither useless

nor unfruitful in the true knowledge

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5–8

Useful! Fruitful! Pleasing God! A high aim, indeed!

Of course things are not as simple as that in the social science studies that were reported. Just aiming for the sky doesn’t make one happy. All of that mighty ambition must be balanced by a healthy dose of realism: Is the grand goal achievable, even remotely? If not, and when failure inevitably ensues, depression, rather than happiness, is bound to be the result.

So what about the Christian life? Is it remotely possible to please God? Is this a realistic goal? If not, why bother? Why fret about something beyond our reach, to end up in depression?

If you backtrack a few verses in 2 Peter 1, the reasonableness of the Apostle’s recipe for pleasing God is explained.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you

in the knowledge of God

and of Jesus our Lord;

seeing that His divine power

has granted to us everything

pertaining to life and godliness,

through the true knowledge of Him

who called us by His own glory and excellence.

For by these He has granted to us

His precious and magnificent promises,

so that by them you may become

partakers of the divine nature ….

2 Peter 1:2–4

That’s amazing. Not only does God require of us a life pleasing to him, he then proceeds to grant us the means to achieve that great goal.

Do this and live, the Law commands;

But gives me neither feet nor hands.

A better way His grace doth bring;

It bids me fly and gives me wings.

Aim high and fly! Please God!