Pray for Ambition ...

Roman poses with a buck his uncle shot in archery season

Hello fellow prayer partners ... Melissa & I just returned to Altoona from our annual Thanksgiving celebration in Lancaster with Melissa's family. It was wonderful. The festivities included lots of food and lots of conversations with family: a perfect holiday!

Many of you who know Melissa's family know that Thanksgiving events are a sign that another highly anticipated day is right around the corner: the first day of deer season. For most of the men in the family (not to mention quite a few men in most families), the first Monday after Thanksgiving is greeted with an amazing amount of excitement and preparation ... let me explain.

Any man who desires to harvest one of these prized animals will undergo a litany of steps in order to prepare himself for the task. First, the prospective hunter will spend hours before the season starts scouting out the area where he intends to capture the animal looking for "buck rubs", "buck scrapes" or any other sign that the deer are present in the locations that he intends to hunt. After confirming the presence of the animals the hunter will sometimes setup a "tree stand" in the appropriate area, facing the appropriate direction according the signs he has observed in the surrounding woods or fields. As the day approaches the hunter will often invest a good chuck of money buying camouflage attire, deer scent, rope, flash lights, knives ... and the list could undoubtedly go on ... the night before the hunter will talk with his hunting buddies about his prospects for the following day, whether or not he feels his luck is up or down and the likelihood of him landing a "big one".

Finally, the day arrives. The hunter will rise at an amazingly early hour of the night (sometimes as early as 4:30am) in order to get dressed and be in his stand by daybreak. The preparation for venturing out into the dark is usually pretty exhaustive and includes putting on several layers of clothes, spraying yourself with deer scent, preparing your firearm, etc. Once the hunter is finally in his stand he will sometime sit there for hours in very cold weather and not see a single animal ... not one. I have heard stories of men who have repeated this process for years and have not landed one deer. All this done out of commitment to the rich hunting tradition (not to mention the hopes of landing that fabled "trophy buck").

Here's the point ... Many men love to hunt. Hunting takes skill, patience, ambition, energy, initiative, commitment and many other very admirable qualities. Yet in many places like Altoona I see a growing apathy in men. It feels that we are increasingly surrounded in our society by men who have failed to take initiative with their families, with their churches and with their communities. I sincerely believe that God created most men with an inherent desire to be ambitious, to dream big, to set high standards and to achieve them. Consider the following passage:

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:7-14

Let's pray for men that they would use their God given ambition, courage and commitment to seek, not their glory but the glory of God.

"He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." Romans 2:6 - 8

Today:

• Pray that God would give men ambition for the gospel.
• Pray that God would allow men to strive for His glory.
• Pray that the Lord would protect men against selfish ambition.
• Pray that the Lord would protect men against apathy.