19.2 Ambition and Extravagance

God is ambitious far beyond any creature whom He created, an ambition coming out from His Pro-Determination. God’s ambition sets Himself to win the heart of every sentient being. He is determined that all things stolen in the darkness be restored, double. God’s ambition is to turn this shattered heaven-earth into a place where humans love one another.

Yet none of those beyond-all ambitions of God come even close to His most daring determinations. – God is determined to bring many sons to glory, that is, to a job well done. Yet beyond even that, God determines that I am symmorphosed with the Lord Jesus. If that isn’t ambition, I don’t know what is.

Extravagant! God is extravagant far beyond any creature whom He created, an extravagance coming out from His overflowing Abundance. If we had received a tiny measure of God, we would have far more than we could encompass. But no, God is too extravagant for a little bit; He dumps upon us all the fullness of God – ALL that God is – to Rivers flowing out!

No one looking at creation can suggest that God did not get carried away with Himself. In any direction, where a few hundred might be considered too many, God spun out thousands and thousands of things in every direction, each unique and brilliant in itself. And what does He give to us? – All the riches of Christ Jesus, won out from all glory. – Extravagant Abundance, overflowing.

Reckless! The most reckless man in the Bible is the one of whom God said, “I have found Me a man after My own Heart.”

As Alexander Pope wrote, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” He was partly talking about you and me, humans designed in the likeness of God, rushing into the Holiest Place in the universe and, sitting down upon the throne of heaven, being adamantly determined to share Heart with God. If that isn’t recklessness, I don’t know what is.

And that’s exactly what David did, even to piling all of his lawbreaking upon God inside this same Most Holy Place and not keeping any of it for himself.

Actually Convinced! Yet none of any of this comes even close to the ambition, the extravagance, even the recklessness of that Man who stumbled from Gethsemane into death under a cross He could not carry. This Man was actually convinced, contrary to all human evidence, that God would raise Him out from death, and that He would carry all inside Himself into life.

Then John said the most mind-boggling and impossible thing ever tossed into human consideration. He said – And we also. You see, here is what we have to understand. God made us just like Himself, and we cannot know what we are apart from knowing our Father. And we never measure any human trait, including ambition, by human perversity, but only by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gentle and Lowly of Heart. Jesus is one ambitious Man. He wants a Bride, a woman of His same Kind, just like Himself, a Bride that is multitudes of humans walking together as one, loving one another. All the fires of all the stars in the universe cannot come close to the passion of this Man to win all His Desire.

I think Jesus will have what He wants, don’t you?

Yet all of this extravagant ambition is gentle and lowly of heart, that’s what “meek” means, all-power, gentle and kind. Jesus’ great desire, then, to be part of our lives, to share all things with us, is but an image or indicator to us of the Father’s far greater desire to share our lives with us, to visit with us in all things. – The Father is greater and mightier than I.

Flow and Rhythm. This course is intended to define the human as we are like the Lord Jesus Christ. Our ambition and our extravagance, equally with our yielding and our moderation, are the Father showing Himself through us.

And this is an important consideration. Just as all sound and all silence are both awful, but music is the flow and rhythm of sounds and silences together, even so is ambition with yielding, as well as extravagance with moderation. All ambition and all yielding are both perverse; greatness comes from the flow and rhythm of the two in harmony. All extravagance and all restraint are both perverse; goodness comes from the flow and rhythm of the two in harmony.

The Essence of a Ruler. And what is the rule that brings balance to all these seemingly contrasting qualities? The rule is the nature of our Father, the One who sees others as better, the One who carries all.

It takes great ambition to design and build a house; it takes great submission to make that house a home for the family who will live in it. A human father, made like God, joys in giving good things to his children, even with extravagance. Yet that same father knows restraint, that his children must stand on their own.

I think we have described, at least partly, the essence of a ruler, both great and good, a weaving together of the qualities of power and abundance.

The Balance of Goodness. A person without ambition is useless to anyone and must be taken care of by others. The thought, “I’m going out to plant a garden to provide for myself and my loved ones,” comes from ambition.

A person without extravagance will never have enough. What gardener thinks, “I’d better plant only a little bit?” No. Most gardeners plant more than they need. In Symmorphy III: Kingdom, Lesson 13.1 “An Overflowing Father,” we looked at God’s extravagance, always pouring out “more than enough.” Yet at the same time, our Father gives us just what we need, just when we need it. This is the balance of goodness.

The Balance of Greatness. How does one know, then, when to take the initiative and when to yield, when to pour out abundantly, and when restraint is needed? You can see that we are pointing to the next level of our taxonomy, judgment, and we are speaking of a heart that rules.

The one presently and actively overcoming and keeping watch until the completion of My works, I will give him authority upon the peoples, and he will shepherd them with a staff of iron, as the earthen vessels are broken; even as I also have received from My Father… (Revelation 2:26-28). A staff of iron in the hand of a broken earthen vessel, this is the balance of greatness.

The Balance of Home. Now, we are pointing towards the rule of judgment, but we haven’t arrived there yet. Rather, we are still at that place of taking things apart and putting them back together again, that is, adventure.

We see, then, that adventure is balanced fully with home. All adventure is too much, just as all home would become boring. The pattern of adventure and home woven together, going out and coming back, is the fullness of life, the joy of living. Adventure makes home much more precious, and home gives adventure an anchor of security. Indeed, this is the purpose of Trumpets, a call to arise and go forth into battle, and a call to return into rest once again.

One Incredible Heart. Ambition is our determination to bless ourselves and others, to know God ourselves evermore and to bring the increased knowledge of God to many. Yielding is our carefulness that each one receives according to his or her own pleasure and not according to an agenda of ours. Extravagance is what we do every time we can get away with it, and thrift is what we do to be sure that each one has enough.

We see, then, that the measurement of both is a careful analysis, or taking apart what is needed, what fits the occasion, and then applying to our lives and others the wondrous wisdom of God. And we do all of this inside the wonder of the Heart of our Father, one incredible Heart.