Article September 26, 1931 Issue

Spiritual Ambition

ANNA E. HERZOG

Each student should ask himself: What is my ambition? Am I on the road which leads to true success? If he is a genuine Christian Scientist, he will realize that he does not so much want to be what the world calls "a successful man," as to be man—successfully. As man, scientifically understood, is the full reflection of divine Mind, no higher aim and object could be cherished than successfully to express the real man.

The word "ambition" is so generally associated with worldly desire for self-advancement that we sometimes forget that it may also represent a noble quality of purpose and aspiration. It is in such a sense that Mrs. Eddy uses it on page 154 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "Have no ambition, affection, nor aim apart from holiness." With this spiritual ambition for holiness controlling one's thinking, every desire to advance self gives place to the desire to advance good. Earnest longing to have Christlikeness dominant in one's thinking replaces any desire for personal domination. In this way self-will gives place to God's will and personal reliance to God-reliance.

One grows to be rightly self-reliant only as one learns to know God and the true selfhood upon which one is to rely in every demonstration. As Christian Scientists we must rely on the perfect man God made, must rely on God's law as sustaining us and giving us all power to progress, and succeed, and overcome. One of the outstanding features of Jesus' ministry was his sublime and unvarying reliance on his reflected ability to apply God's law. Such confidence must be ours.

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