Can we talk about... ambition?

It might be helpful to note here that one of the primary ways I use ChatGPT is for setting and tracking my personal and business goals. We do a lot of talking about what’s feasible, what it would take to reach the spaces I sense God calling me and Go + Tell Gals, and how to create actionable steps to get there.

So, all that being said, the other day I asked ChatGPT if it had any good guesses about what my next book is about.

You Can’t Be Brave Until You’re Scared comes out in October, but the pace I typically write books means I usually have an inkling of what the next one might be before the current one even comes out. I’ve been ideating on my next book, and I wondered if the idea was somehow seeping out of my subconscious and into my work.

So I asked the AI bot to guess. And… it guessed wrong.
But the answer was so interesting.

“If I had to guess, I bet your next book is on ambition.”

For the record, I don’t think it is. But that answer didn’t surprise me at all.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I’ve been processing and turning over the idea of ambition for the last few years.

I’ve recorded a podcast episode about ambition. I’ve certainly journaled about it. I’ve wrestled through what is holy ambition and what is human ambition. I’ve processed how wild and juxtaposing it can feel to be a Christian woman cultivating godly ambition, especially when I compare my own experience to the way I see men going after their goals - and how they’re received for it.

I’ve felt shame about my ambition, and I’ve put my ambition on a shelf when I needed to grieve and heal.

And now I find myself in a season where I’m trying to cultivate the drive, passion, and hunger for ministry and mission that God has given me.

For the next few years, I sense God calling us toward expansion in a few different areas, both at Bright City, our church, and at Go + Tell Gals as we expand into a nonprofit.

I do think that answer is partially true.

But when I look at the entire biblical story of people following hard after God, sometimes their abiding looked a lot like building.

Sometimes their abiding looked like taking on projects bigger than themselves.

Sometimes trusting God looked like picking up a hammer.

Sometimes surrender looked like getting to work.

And as if the next few years blooming out in front of me weren’t enough of an invitation to ask honest questions about my own ambition and where God lives in it, I also have this ever-looming deadline of October.

In October, we’ll host our first-ever Brave conference here in Charleston.

A few days later, I’ll publish a book I’ve been working on for more than two years - a book that I really believe could change hundreds of thousands of lives.

And that same month, our first fundraising deadline of $75,000 is up.

I think I’ve been in the game long enough to know none of this is about my success, how I’m perceived, or reaching some imagined level where I’ve finally “made it.”

But if I really love the women I believe need this book…

If I really care for the people coming to this event…

If I let myself feel the weight of the thousands of women Go + Tell Gals could serve for free in the next few years…

Because while I believe with my whole heart that God will do the heavy lifting, I’m beginning to believe just as deeply that partnering with Him might require some of my sweat.