Rescuing Ambition
Rescuing Ambition is the most recent book by Dave Harvey, the author of “When Sinners Say I Do” and head of church planting, church care and international expansion for Sovereign Grace Ministries. Just like his previous book Harvey writes with a warm inviting personableness that seems to be second nature. After reading a book by Harvey you feel like he has not only conveyed helpful information and biblical truth to you but that he has befriended you. I can only echo Jerry Bridges when he said “You will find this book not only profitable but also hard to put down.” Dave invites you into his life to share his experience and mistakes in hopes that you can be taught by the same grace that God has taught him with. This book in particular centers on ambition, which is easily gleaned from the title, but you might be surprised all the places that ambition leads you throughout the book. I consider myself a pretty ambitious and entrepreneurial minded person but after reading the book I realized that in my heart I was wanting some kind of Godly justification for pursuing the things that I wanted rather than God himself. Harvey will be the first to tell you that ambition isn’t a bad thing, but that this is “ambition gone wrong” or selfish ambition which needs to be redeemed and transformed into Godly ambition. Harvey says that “a good ambition become a selfish ambition when it’s our only ambition. It’s called idolatry.” On the other hand “when we empty ourselves of personal glory, we won’t be empty; we’ll learn the fullness of Christ and our ambitions are rescued in the process.” As you make your way through the book you will definitely laugh but you will also be challenged to look to the root of your own ambitions or lack of when you face statements like “our willingness to make others a success is a great measure of the purity of our ambitions.”, “When we become too humble to aspire, we’ve stopped being humble. Our humility should harness our ambition, not hinder it.” and “Discontentment rears its head when our ambitions are frustrated. Discontentment is a herald announcing that there as more to our ambitions than noble aspirations.” Harvey covers a lot of topics and gives good scriptural evidence for everything he says. I have been able to get a lot out of this book and I hope you will too.
You can see more info about the book and a brief video here
