Dear friend,
Your question had to do with masculine motivation. In short, you pondered why your spouse does not have godly ambition in life. That is a terrific question and I am certain there are many others who could opine in more sophisticated language and deal more realistically with the motivation factor. Dr. Jordan Peterson is the obvious one from a secular perspective, though his insights are very much grounded in common grace wisdom. I would also throw in Mark Horne’s book, “Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men,” as a resource for your sons.
In many of these cases, there may be health-related issues attached, but I want to deal with my area of interest which is the habit and ritual categories.
In many cases, habits built early on are hard to undo later in life. For instance, fathers who did not read the Bible often produce young men who are indifferent towards Bible reading. The same can be applied to other fields as well. This applies especially to husbands who treat the Lord’s Day with triviality. Attending worship is not on top of his priority list, and therefore the family reads into his lack of enthusiasm and before long they have developed an environment where only if the perfect condition is met, then attendance can take place. The end result is that the perfect condition–especially if you have little ones–are rarely found. These fathers will be judged for their lack of leadership. So, many of these issues are ritualized into the fabric of a young man and later play a role in a married man’s desires.
Whether these particular godly ambitions are what you have in mind, we can return to them another time. But the basic question is the one I intend to address, which is why a man does not have godly ambition and desire.
As in other scenarios, I believe the principles need to be kept few. Brevity is the art of kings. Long-windedness is the art of bureaucrats. Two significant principles for men come to mind, which also allow them to regain motivation and godly ambition in life.
First, every man must choose something to love. He must be committed to certain principles. He must love his God, family, church well enough that it is visible. The lack of loves leads to a lack of desires and pursuits in a man’s life. He will be easily content with mud pies and assume that there is nothing too great to love, or worse, he will assume that he loves just enough to satisfy expectations. But he needs to love well and fervently those things he is accountable to love. A man with no true and substantive love will settle for trivialities and the pursuits of children.
The second principle is a little harder to articulate because it does not sound “nice” for our age. But every man must choose something to hate well. I added “well” because unrestrained hatred is deceptive and demoralizing. God and his people hate all kinds of things in the Bible, but especially unrighteous acts.
A man must be able to carefully articulate his hates, as well as his loves. He must pursue the hatred of something tangible. He can’t simply say he hates Nietzsche and act as if that is sufficient. He must hate the philosophy and the consequences of that thinking in the lives of people and politics.
It is too often that men believe they must only love things, but I argue that godly ambitious men also hate the right things and causes. And he must do both so that his hates don’t trump his loves and vice-versa. When men begin to step back from necessary conflict, it’s because he loves their reputation too much or hates the wrong things.
Godly ambitions are rooted in desires, and desires are rooted in the true man who hated and loved well.
