What’s Your Ambition?

The mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons. She knelt respectfully to ask a favor. “What is your request?” he asked. She replied, “In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” Matthew 20:20-21

SURELY THE MOTHER of James and John had some ambition for her sons. But when she approached Jesus with her bold request, you can almost see her sons pushing her toward him, thinking, perhaps, that Jesus would be more inclined to say yes to the nice lady. When Jesus replied to her question, he talked around her and spoke directly to them. “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?”

Their ambition had not only twisted their understanding of the Kingdom; it had inflated their sense of themselves. “‘Oh yes,’ they replied, ‘we are able!’”(Matthew 20:22).

We all have ambition for our children. We want them to make the team, be admitted into the desirable school, and get the part in the play, knowing that others will not. It’s not that having ambition for our children is necessarily bad. The issue is this: Have our ambitions for our children been shaped by the kingdom of the world or by the Kingdom of God? Jesus says that while people in the world look to lord over others, that’s not how it works in his Kingdom. “Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28).

Though our culture constantly pushes our children to focus on excelling and climbing the ladder to success academically, athletically, and socially, Jesus calls them to come down from that ladder to serve the needs of others.

Lord, I can’t help but have hopes and dreams for ________. But like everything else that flows out of my heart, I need my ambitions for ________ to be purified by you. Give me the grace to lead the way in having an ambition to serve others out of love for you. And give ________ a true sense of the good life —a life of taking up a cross, confident of the crown that is to come.