Make it Happen March: Ambition for Submission

Humans, by nature, are ambitious creatures.  Sometimes, like when I am celebrating the success of watching all of the tv shows that have been backlogged on my Hulu queue, I wonder if ambition is something that will eventually atrophy and disappear from lack of use in our culture. 

However, since the invention of the wheel, it seems that human ambition is an unstoppable force.

Well...most of the time.

Since it is Make it Happen March and since I have been trying to keep my mind off of how badly I would like to bite into something made of or produced by animals (an entire wheel of cheese, perhaps?) , I have been contemplating why some human ambitions seem to come to fruition so easily and why others seem to be met with obstacles at every turn.

I have come to two separate conclusions: Practice and Pride

I recently found my old yellow Gameboy Color in my aunt's garage. I turned it on and proceeded to make good use of my time by playing Super Mario Bros. for the next two hours. In the game, your ultimate ambition is to protect the kingdom by defeating the big boss, Bowser, by jumping on his head three times (the goal) . However, you don't get to fight Bowser until you have first defeated all of the other, lesser, bosses (the obstacles). Each of the lesser bosses prepares you in a new way to successfully take on Bowser and save the Super Mario kingdom for all time. I'm not going to lie, it's a pretty intense game and you have to be pretty skilled in the Gameboy arts to defeat it (this is not true). 

It's also a good picture of "Practice". Humans learn by experience.  If we are trying to make something big happen or defeat a big problem in our lives, we will be wildly unsuccessful without hands-on training. Even David faced a lion and a bear before taking out Goliath. God directed the stone that took Goliath out, but David was given the confidence in himself and the confidence in God that was needed to face the Giant during the practice rounds with the lesser beasts.  It seems as if physical muscle and faith muscle are equally important when it comes to making things happen.

Another object I found in the treasure trove that is my aunt's garage was a magnet set from some science kit I had in middle school. I don't even want to reveal to you how long I was entertained by those things. I sat there for longer than should be allowed for an adult attempting to make two magnets with the same polarity meet and connect. It never worked. No matter how loud I yelled at the magnet to "do my bidding!", the weaker magnet would always eventually slip out of my hands, flip around and stick to the other one. 

After telling a friend about spending valuable time playing with magnets (yes, my life is so exciting that I play with magnets, then tell people about them), it struck me that this is actually an interesting picture of "Pride". The magnet of God's will has a singular polarity. If you are trying to make something happen in your will that is outside of God's, you will be met with a tremendous force pushing you away from it. 

Think about the ambitious undertaking of the Tower of Babel. Not even the sky was the limit in their minds. They came together to make a name for themselves- maybe instead of being content with the name and situation that God had given them (pride). Obviously the tower, while it would have been an impressive tourist attraction, was not in God's will. I guess they finally got the memo that it wasn't a good idea when they couldn't even pronounce the name they were trying to make for themselves because their languages got all mixed up.

Pronunciation is key.

A modern Tower can be seen in the Titanic. In the Make it Happen March of 1912, people were getting ready to present a ship that "God Himself could not sink". **Spoiler alert** It sank. 

Well...maybe you're not.

The good news is that, once you figure out that what you are trying to make happen is outside of God's will and submit to what is inside his will, all you really have to do is let Him guide you. Once I turned the weaker magnet around to submit to the stronger, the strong one could bring the weaker one to it from across the garage. I mean, think about it- Noah and his possie built an ark a gajillion or so years before the Titanic. Before degrees in engineering and toy ships in bathtubs. Everyone thought he was a crazy hippie, taking on an insane and futile task. But his ambition to build the ark came from God. God gave him each direction and made the materials available despite the nearest Home Depot being thousands of years away. All he had to do was listen and follow God's direction and his ambitious project was made into something that was pivitol in the fate of the human race.

Noah > Super Mario. 

For me, it actually takes the pressure off of being significant in what I'm trying to make happen in my life. Each of us have talents that we are supposed to use to fulfill our Godly ambitions. In a way we are like Forrest Gump on the football field. We've got all of this God-given skill, but lack the God-given smarts to know how to turn it into a successful game. It's a good thing we've got God and (if we are lucky) a strong community to help tell us when it's time to "GO!" and time to "STOP!" 

As I'm striving to make things happen this Make it Happen March, I am also going to strive to be sensitive to make sure to stay within the parameters of God's will. And when I come across an obstacle (like free cheese samples) I am going to really seek and pray for the wisdom to know whether it is a manifestation of Practice to defeat future giants or a check on my Pride. 

And I will probably be spending more time in my aunt's garage.