more thoughts on ambition [farming, pastoral ministry & worship-leading]

It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Here being: alone, at a coffee shop, headphones on, writing.

As you can probably imagine, having a full-time job with two kids doesn’t afford myself too much time to write.

But here I am, in the early morning in downtown Toronto, waiting for a work team-building event to start, and I am committed to jotting down some thoughts while I have this luxury.

When I’m not thinking about packing bags for daycare (don’t forget the ‘baby’ sunscreen!), meal-planning for the night, and trying to comprehend the IL-23/IL-17 inflammatory pathways that seem to underlie everything from asthma to psoriasis (how does everything seem to boil down to inflammation??), the other part of my brain seems to drift towards thoughts on ambition and contentment.

The tension, the paradox and their place in the Christian walk.

If you’ve been around this blog long enough, you know this seems to be a constant theme in my life – struggling to rest and be slow, to be okay even when I’m not producing.

I’ve written about it while single, when I’ve found myself in the quiet between semesters, or stuck in bed sick, and lately as a mom, struggling to pray while contemplating going back to work.

It’s curious how the questions have followed me no matter what season of life I am in, and I wonder if they are simply endemic to the human experience.

When you find some quiet, do you also find yourself asking – what am I aiming towards? What is the point? Am I supposed to strive? What about being content? Can I be content and strive at the same time?

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Last week, we went on a farm tour of Vermont as farms seem like the best kind of vacation for kids of their age.

We literally spent 40 minutes just watching cows eat their breakfast – it was great.

Tyler, the farmer running the whole operation, is a first-generation farmer passionate about regenerative farming and rotationally grazing his herd of 70 Jersey cows, and as we followed him herd them towards the next pasture, we chatted about life on the farm and the path that led him to where he is right now (obviously our favorite part :D).

What struck me most from the conversation were his musings on struggling to rest and be content, even on this farm surrounded by so much beauty.

“I wake up in this place with a long list of things to do,” he confessed, the resignation evident on his face, “but I have to go to bed, being grateful for what I got to do instead of think about what I didn’t do.”

I looked around at the bucolic scene – the vast amounts of land, the cows peacefully grazing – the kind of place you think you would want to spend your retirement days in.

Surely the accomplishment of creating and owning such a place would count as sufficient.

Isn’t this the goal? The dream?

His words sounded like that of King Solomon; after having cultivated much land and acquired as much wealth as he could, he concludes:

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from Him, who can eat and have enjoyment?

Ecclesiastes 2:24-25, ESV

As we walked, we arrived at the pond, which he had dug out last summer, now gloriously sparkling in the morning light.

Tyler turned to us, pausing with his hands in his pockets as he looked far off, his scruffy face lined with years of sun, earth and caretaking.

“I think about what success is,” he said.

I could tell this was a question that haunted him amidst all the work of his hands.

“If success was about having a perfectly manicured farm, I would give up. So I think it will be knowing I have kept at it all these years, that will be success.”

Faithfulness – keeping at the boring and ordinary even when it’s hard, even when no one sees, even when no one appreciates or praises you,

even when the fruit of your labor is not immediately evident.

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These lessons from farming are what we have also been learning in pastoral ministry.

In reading “The Imperfect Pastor: discovering joy in our limitations through a daily apprenticeship with Jesus“, Eswine talks about how a pastor is tempted to be everywhere for everyone, or to fix it all.

Yet, in trying so hard not to miss out, we actually create the very thing we fear.

Coming face to face with our human limitations, then, is a means of His grace.

The boundaries of our calling reveal God’s pastoral care for you, Eswine says.

We cannot control people’s decisions or the outcomes of situations any more than a farmer can weed out all the dandelions from his 300-acre piece of land.

But, then, what should be my ambition? I asked, as I read the book.

(As you can tell, I like books that give me action items that will meaningfully affect my life.)

Should I give up trying to make goals? To strive or move forward? Is it all vanity, as King Solomon exclaimed?

There are few times that the Lord speaks to me very directly from his Word, but this verse spoke to me as clear as day, as if to answer the questions I’ve had for many years.

We urge you..to [love all of God’s family] more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: you should mind your own business and work with your hands.

1 Thessalonians 4:10-12, ESV

And here I was thinking that He didn’t have anything to say about ambition.

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So, what does leading a quiet life look like?

The Greek word translated as ‘quiet’ is hesuchazo, which does not mean the absence of noise, but carries the idea of trust or contented rest.

There is contentment in staying in our lane, living out the calling He has given us and working diligently with our hands.

More than being ambitious for the next salary raise or even saving enough money to buy a farm one day (apparently, being a farmer is not as idyllic as they make it out to be anyways), the greater ambition is to learn – in the midst of the crumbs-on-the-floor, tantrums-over-spilled-milk, pre-bedtime chaos –

how to live calmly and contented, even here.

Not wanting out or different, but moving at the pace He has allotted for me.

The floor is supposed to be like this right now – they’re just kids, I tell myself, when every fiber of my being wants to immediately sweep and mop up every smidge of dirt.

But I see how this needs to be my ambition, because beholding God with my restless soul will take my whole life to learn.

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The last thing I leave you with is this nugget from Cory Asbury, one of the OG worship leaders from my college days.

I recently saw him lead worship at the Forrest Frank concert (Side bar: If you haven’t heard FF yet, you need to! His songs have been my soundtrack many mornings) and it really brought me back.

In one of his interviews, he recounts his “small days” at IHOP before ‘Reckless Love’ took off.

No one knew him at that time (except perhaps me and my charismatic college friends ;)) and he would simply spend his days in the prayer room, hidden in obscurity.

In that time period, he often complained about not being more famous and looked forward to the day his songs would make their way around the world.

Yet, now looking back, he concludes that his time of obscurity was so much easier than a life of having “reached his ambition”.

For his ambition of being famous also brought with it the pressure of having to leave his family to tour, or writing songs to further that ambition instead of for the simple pleasure of worship.

“What do you want now, Cory?” the interviewer asks him at the end.

“To make the Father proud, love my family well and to write great songs,” he replies.

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There are many other thoughts I have on ambition and contentment, but we’ll have to stop here for now, as my quiet time of reflection is quickly ending.

But I do think this question is one we need to answer, and it is also one Jesus keeps asking people before He heals them:

May our answer to this question bring us to a place of quiet – that in all our coming and going, waking and sleeping, we would find our soul content.

Or at least ambitious for contentment.

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There is a day when the road neither comes nor goes, and the way is not a way but a place.

Wendell Berry