Let Personal Values Rein in Personal Ambition

We often experience situations that challenge our value system and which in turn threaten our inner peace. Being faced with options to participate in unethical practices leaves some individuals momentarily tempted. Personal ambition plays a major role in how internal conflict is managed.

 

You may choose to permit ambition to override your personal values. Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle identified ambition as temptation to sin because of the drive to be successful. Alexander Pope remarked that “Ambition can save or destroy.” Whether ambition works for good or evil is determined by personal choice.

Striving to achieve all that’s possible is regulated by personal values.  If unbridled ambition collides with values guarding your inner peace and conscience, the consequences can be disturbing. Let the Apostle Paul’s testimony be your objective: “I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” This is possible when the Holy Spirit guides your choices. 

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I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Do not be like the horse or the mule,

Which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.

~Psalm 32:8-9 New International Version