ambition

The fallacy of planning for tomorrow (or anytime in the future)

/ E Bishop Wooten / Leave a comment

James 4:13-15. . .”And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, ‘Today, at the very latest tomorrow, we are off to such and such a city for a year. We are going to start a business and make a lot of money.’ You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You are nothing but a wisp of fog, catching but a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead make it a habit of saying, ‘if the Master wills and we are still alive, we will do this or do that.'” (The Message)

Today’s devotional sounds like most people nowadays. This just proves that people don’t really change. We are always planning for our future. In and of itself this is not a bad thing; we just have to remember that nothing is promised. This flies in the face of the prosperity gospel which claims God has much wealth in store for us. There is truth to the prosperity gospel but it is more internal; i.e., from the inside out.

This does not mean we shouldn’t be ambitious. Ambition is a good thing because it is better than living an idle life. Worldly ambition leads us to pray to God with wrong motives which serve to only benefit ourselves only. True ambition involves living humbly before God and walking in the Spirit. Maybe it would help us to look at all the other blessings that our business brings us rather than just the monetary ones.

Follow your dreams but be realistic. Put God first and remember nothing in the future is set in stone. It is a fallacy to believe we have our whole lives ahead of us because every day is a gift with no promise of another day. Although our spirits will live on in another realm.

Practicing mindfulness makes it hard to have ambition

/ E Bishop Wooten / Leave a comment

It is common knowledge in the world of Psychology that depression is related to living in the past while anxiety is likewise being too focused on the future.


That being said, the best place to live is in the moment. Or as the New Age Gurus refer to it: “living in the NOW.”
I have been practicing mindfulness the past six years and I will be the first to admit that my natural ambition in life took a downward spiral. Especially when the Spirit showed me that I didn’t need all of this “stuff” and that I was already wealthy in the spiritual realm.


The result was I had a hard time looking for even a part-time job for nearly a year. I knew all I had to do was take the first step. I even begin to wonder if I needed medication to get me to conform to the pattern of the world.


Now I am facing the same dilemma with taking a second job just so I can pay off a car payment faster (don’t worry as I haven’t taken it out yet).
Nowhere in the Bible will you find a reference to mindfulness. Usually when you think of this practice, you think of eastern religions like Buddhism. That does not mean it is not a biblical concept if it keeps you grounded in the Christ.


The Bible also gives no reference to a “trinity” or a “rapture” either. Do you really think you can limit the Divine to just 66 books? Even the Catholic Church has included the Apocrypha to their Bible. Give them time and the Gnostic gospels may even be added.


Anyway, back to the point of this article. Practicing mindfulness can kill your ambition. Just look at my blog post “how God ruined my life.”


It is okay to have ambition and strive for things. Just don’t get so focused that it hinders the spiritual journey. You will know this is happening if you begin to feel stressed, anxious, or depressed.
As Jesus said, focus on the troubles of today and don’t worry about what tomorrow may bring since the next day is not promised.

Even His own half-brother admonished us to humble ourselves before the Lord toward the end of the book of James when his people were focusing too much on all of these things they were going to do tomorrow and thereafter.
Besides, material wealth is gathered little by little. As you work on a daily basis, your real wealth will continue to grow. You may even surprise yourself by how much you have 20 or 30 years down the road.


Just don’t make material wealth a priority in life. Work hard, set goals, but keep them in proper perspective when it comes to eternal values.


Literally everything we do will not matter in the afterlife as that is a different realm entirely. The Bible even says that the flesh profits nothing. The only thing that matters is our attitude towards God and how we serve our neighbor in love.