Stop Settling: How Real Humility Produces Deep Passion, Not Passivity

Living passionately and pursuing humility can sound like polar opposites, like putting one foot on the gas and the other on the brake at the same time. And yet, we are called to do both. Christians are called to love passionately. We are called to love God and to love our neighbor. We are called to celebrate all that is good in this world, and as creatives, we are gifted with the ability to speak powerfully to our generation. Amidst that passion, we are also called to remain humble and to keep a healthy perspective on who we are and what we are here for. If we take the time to understand God’s word, we begin to see that true humility fuels your creative passion and ambition.

Ambition and The Christian Life

If Jesus spoke to you today as a creative, he might say many things, but maybe he would also have these two words for you: Stop Settling. Tragically, too many Christians have given into bad advice and bad theology about humility, ambition, and what it means to honor God with all of your talents and gifts. They have equated humility with passivity, and bought the lie that ambition is ungodly. Make no mistake. These are lies from the pit of Hell. Passivity is not a virtue, and it never has been. Sure, there is a time to “wait upon the Lord,” but that was never meant to be the permanent disposition of a follower of Christ. There is also a time to move forward in obedience and in faith. Knowing this helps us to walk in confidence, and to experience the creative freedom God intended for us to experience.

Passivity and The Devil

The only one who wants you to be passive, to give up and sit on the sidelines, is the Devil. He hates the talents God gave you and will try anything to discourage you, trip you up, or sow seeds of doubt about your calling. He will use cultural beliefs, family guilt trips, and legalistic preaching to fill you with guilt, shame and fear. He is not below using anything and everything he can, to stop you from using your creative gifts. We should remember his tactics, and be wise about discerning his attacks. (2 Cor. 2:11) We should also remember that the book of Proverbs warns us about passivity and laziness. Proverbs 10:4 is quite clear,“Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” Laziness and passivity are not godly pursuits.

Hard Work and Ambition

The Bible starts in a garden and ends in a city for a reason. This is by design. God, from the beginning of time, has been inviting us on a marvelous journey of discovery, invention and creation. We do not work and create as God does, but we create and work as those made in His image. We create with a purpose, and with a desire to bring order out of chaos, and meaning out of meaninglessness. God rejoices in seeing us use all of our mind, our talents and our skills to build societies that pursue human flourishing for all who live there.

Work is a good thing. One of the only commandments given to us before the fall was this command to work hard, and to care for all creation. This includes everything from farming to factories, and cultivating land to creating works of art.

Ambition is Required to Fulfill God’s Commands

If we pause to think about it, we realize that cities and civilizations do not happen automatically. From the old city of Jerusalem, to the New Jerusalem, cities take hard working, ambitious people who will stretch their limits, and take risks. Civilizations require ambitious people who want to create newer and better ways to live together in harmony. This includes everything from indoor plumbing to cell towers and city parks. It also includes storytelling and art that unites citizens by helping them to understand who they are and why they are here. Without ambition, we would not be able to fulfill the mandate to care for creation and culture.

Ambitious Artists take Risks

Working hard to create great art and honor God with your life is often daunting. You want to make an impact, but you cannot control the results. You do not know how people will respond until you share it with your audience. Will they love it, or hate it? Will they embrace you or dismiss you? These are real fears that creatives face, but these are not reasons to give up. This is part of the process that makes it exciting. The exhilaration of success only exists when we know the real danger of failure. It is like the role of faith in our spiritual life. We often need to step out in obedience, not knowing what the result will be. Will we be imprisoned like the Apostle Paul or experience the blessings of being ushered into a promised land. We are never guaranteed the results in our faith or in our craft. Both require faith and obedience. And yet, we have great security in the end, knowing we are loved by God, and no matter what happens, our story will end in His arms.

Examining Motivations

The Apostle Paul eloquently brings us back to our motivations and our heart. He knows we will never be satisfied working for money just to pay the rent. We won’t be satisfied working to get rich either. We need something more meaningful. We need work that serves a higher purpose. Paul directs us to see that our work is ultimately meant for one purpose, as he states, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”(Col. 3:23) Men will fail us. Working for the approval of others will fail to satisfy. The only purpose that will never fail is glorifying God with your art.

So, our primary motivation is to glorify God in our work. This is partly done by providing for our family, partly through our skills and craftsmanship, partly by being fair in our business, and partly done by providing something of value that benefits the lives of others. All of these dynamics glorify God. The more we understand this and make this our motivation, the more freeing and satisfying our work will become.

The Selfish Ambition Distinction

How can we be humble and ambitious at the same time? Now that we have explored what it means to be ambitious as an artist and as a Christian, we must be clear about what we mean by humility. As Paul wrote to the Philippians,
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
– Philippians 2:3.

Paul points out not the danger of ambition as a whole, but “selfish ambition.” This is because selfish ambition ignores that the purpose of our work is to glorify God. Instead of glorifying God it glorifies the self. This never satisfies. Worshiping a created thing, such as the self, instead of the Creator always ends up in discouragement, and frustration (Romans 1). We were not made for glorifying something so small, so frail, and so fallible. It cannot fulfill such a weighty task.

Humility and Healthy Ambition

Once we see the Apostle Paul’s distinction, the smoke clears and we see what is important. If our ambition is to glorify God in our art, our family, our work and our worship, then our ambition is properly directed and will bear wonderful fruit. This is the proper ambition we are called to pursue. This is the ambition that should compel us to work hard, love well, and savor our sabbaths.

Humility is not, as some in our culture proclaim, thinking poorly of ourselves. Humility is having an honest appraisal of who we are. A humble person neither pretends they are better or worse than they really are. They are at home in their own skin, and they have a contentment and peace about life because they are not trying to pretend they are something that they are not. They know God made them just the way they are, and God loves them just as they are. Such an understanding produces not only freedom, but also peace and joy.

Godly ambition seeks to serve others and glorify God, while selfish ambition seeks to glorify only themselves.

Ambition and Self-Reflection

There are a thousand reasons why people work hard in their craft, and working hard to excel at your craft is a good thing. The essential question is focusing on the “why.” Thus, it is not ambition that is good or bad, but what drives our ambition. If we seek only riches, we are fools, and if we seek to glorify God in success or failure then our ambition is focused on the proper recipient, God himself.

The real question we must ask ourselves is the why question. Do you pursue this only for your own fame, for approval, or to afford expensive luxuries. Do you pursue it to glorify God with your talents? Do you pursue it so that you can be salt and light with other talented people in your industry? We must examine our hearts, and repent where it is needed. Naturally, this is not something we do once and are finished. It is a life-long journey.

Feeling God’s Pleasure

Considering a life of Godly ambition and humility, I was reminded of the Olympic runner, Eric Liddell, and his famous quote in the great movie, Chariots of Fire, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure,” Eric’s humility and godly ambition freed him to embrace the simple pleasure of being a great runner and connecting that to God’s love for him.

In contrast, another runner in the 1924 Olympics, Harold Abrahams, is chained to his performance. As he focuses only on his gifts and ambition, the pressure to perform becomes intense. In that scene he says, “And now in one hour’s time I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor, 4 feet wide, with 10 lonely seconds to justify my whole existence. But will I?” You can feel the weight of his question…“will I justify my existence?” What a terrible weight. Eric Liddell could run with freedom and ambition, seeking to do his best, all the while knowing God loves him, and that his worth was not measured by his performance. Harold Abrahams was alone, seeking to be validated in something that can never provide that validation.

In the same way, as creatives, I invite you to find your identity fully in who God says you are, and in His love for you. Only then can you be free to run the creative race God has placed before you. Only then can you rejoice in knowing it is all about Him. Then you can relax. You can rest in knowing you are loved. And, you can pour all your energy and ambition into your art, and your family, and your faith, knowing that it is what you were made for.

A Cultural Caveat

As our ministry has grown outside North America, we see different struggles artists face in other cultures. One of the problems we have seen in Latin America, and in Asia is the idea that self-promotion and ambition can be seen as inherently evil. A dear friend of ours was chastised just for learning English. Neighbors attacked them, saying they are prideful and must think they are better than others because they want to “get ahead” just by learning English.

In one Latin American country it seemed like the only ambitious people were those in cartels. Thus, the evil done in the name of ambition became culturally embedded in the idea of ambition itself. They could not imagine godly ambition because they had never seen it. We have seen this in Asia with the idea of self-promotion. Unethical people promoted themselves at the expense of others, and the culture has lost the distinction between healthy and unhealthy self-promotion or ambition. These are cultural challenges that we want to acknowledge.

So, to our brothers and sisters living in other contexts, I want to encourage you. You have unique challenges, but you are not alone. We love you and pray for you, your friends and your very culture to see this distinction so that Christians will feel the freedom and joy in Christ to be ambitious for God. This is at the heart of what God desires.

Conclusion

God designed you to be ambitious and humble. When we see clearly what this means, and begin to live in this way we can experience the freedom Christ died to give us. Such a life will fuel your creative life and your spiritual life.

We should remember, the Gospel is not only for our salvation, but for our sanctification and for all of life. Daily we must repent of our sins, be humble about who we are, and then get back up, in faith and godly ambition, seeking to glorify God in all we do.

Let us know in the comments below if this was helpful to you.
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Copyright © 2025 Joel & Michelle Pelsue. All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

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