A great deal of our lives – the people we want to become, the impact we want to make – is tied not simply to desire, but whether we will exercise disciplined ambition.  Desire is simply longing, or wishing.  Ambition has to do with such desire becoming focused on an objective, and thus resulting in someone driven toward a particular goal.  Discipline has to do with a management of life which results in self-control, orderliness and efficiency.  
 
In truth, desire alone is little more than a dream.  Ambition, by itself, can be little more than a “loose cannon” of activity.  And even the most disciplined of lives often result in little more than structure, achieving little or nothing at all.
 
We need a hunger for something more for our lives, and through our lives, for this world; we need an ambition that refuses to be satisfied until we reach our full potential, and chase God through every opportunity we can imagine; and we need to exercise the kind of discipline that exerts the necessary life-change to see those opportunities realized.
 
So let’s make our annual, New Year’s “to do” lists.  Desire, and even ambition, will lead the way.  But if you want anything on your list to happen, add a good dose of discipline.  Which means that along with your “to do” list, you’ll make a list of another kind.
 
A “stop doing” list.
 
James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; President of Serious Times, a ministry which explores the intersection of faith and culture (www.serioustimes.org); and professor of theology and culture on the Charlotte campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Dr. White holds the B.S., M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees, along with additional work at Vanderbilt University and Oxford University. He is the author of over a dozen books.

Please Click

Here to view Dr. White's Crosswalk.com blog

Sources

James C. Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don’t (2001).