Editorial May 26, 1917 Issue

Real Ambition

William D. McCrackan

David was really ambitious. He volunteered for God and country against Goliath. To King Saul he said, "Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine," and he challenged the giant "in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel." Yet the shepherd boy's experience in volunteering was not unlike that of many another spiritual warrior,—his motive was promptly suspected. His eldest brother was angered and said: "Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart." Had Eliab been a dabbler in metaphysics he would doubtless have accused David of mad ambition.

Mrs. Eddy has written on page 58 of Science and Health, "Unselfish ambition, noble life-motives, and purity,—these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute individually and collectively true happiness, strength, and permanence." Real ambition springs from inspiration and so is misunderstood by the carnal mind. Properly conceived and placed ambition is not only legitimate but actually essential to spiritual progress. It is the eager desire to work for God, to be godlike and in obedience to the "still small voice." This ambition is truly insatiable because incapable of being satisfied with the husks of materiality. It leads the Christian Scientist to the bedside of the sick and dying, to volunteer in church work, to be a minute man, to enlist in the warfare against error, to the consecration of time, money, and effort to save mankind. Should this ambition be called mad? In her Message to The Mother Church in 1902 Mrs. Eddy wrote, "It does not follow that power must mature into oppression; indeed, right is the only real potency; and the only true ambition is to serve God and to help the race" (p. 3).

Stagnant minds are critical of individuals who are active in church and state. Such minds try to discourage spiritual alertness because the latter uncovers their own inactivity. They would have condemned Isaiah when the Lord said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" and he volunteered, "Here am I; send me." Resistance to real ambition would even try to pull down those who are being transfigured on the cross of ascension. It mocked the Master. It plotted and planned, and pointed the finger at him at the very time when the halo of his divine message hovered about him. It likened him to the prince of devils, although a voice from heaven declared, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

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