Holy Ambition Begins at Home
I have an ambition: I want to write good stories that change the world. Following in the footsteps of Lewis and Tolkien, I want to craft tales that act as signposts to the triune God. I want to fight against the darkness with fables of light.
But I have four children under 5.
Often my ambition to write for God’s glory and my calling as a father seem to pull in opposite directions. My desk calls me into the office, while my kids, pretending to be lions, roar for my attention from the living room. I once explained to a wise friend my frustration that parenting felt like an anchor, hindering my efforts to champion truth through fiction. I’ll never forget what he said: “Your children are the most important stories you’re writing. They are your best weapons.”
Without dousing my fire for writing, he challenged me to consider whether my ambitions outside the home were really at odds with those in it — and whether the distracting lions might play a necessary role in my godly writing. His counsel echoes the central thrust of Psalm 127: Build your home faithfully so you can fight with your home joyfully, trusting the sovereign Homemaker.
Father of young children, do you ever feel a tension between kingdom work within the home and outside it? I want to offer ambitious fathers three encouragements from this psalm that provide focus and urgency for our parenting.
Build Your Home Faithfully
Psalm 127 presents God’s vision for domestic ambition. It begins, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (verse 1). The second half of the poem clarifies that the house in view here is not a physical building but a family full of children. The poem addresses “those who build” in order to help them build well.
Fathers (helped by mothers) should have a holy ambition to build within their walls. Get your own house in order before you worry about the ends of the earth. Elder qualifications require men to build their homes well before leading a church because, in the biblical hierarchy of values, home comes before world, house comes before city, near comes before far. Consider three pillars of this faithful construction, so you might build your own home faithfully.
1. You reflect God’s smile in your home.
More than anything else — books, sermons, Sunday school — the way fathers treat their children teaches them about God. Every father, by the way he acts, speaks, and relates to his children, embodies a vision of God that shapes them. Your paternity will either be a smear campaign against the heavenly Father or a living picture reflecting him.
Fathers, what kind of God do your children see through you? Do they see a God of love and laughter, a God who smiles? Or do they see a golden calf, a cold, inattentive, vain mockery of God? The Father you reveal to them helps write their story.
2. You model godly affections in your home.
Fathers are mimetic models, that is, examples for imitation. What dad desires, kids will clamor for. Recently my 4-year-old discovered I lift weights in the garage. Now whenever I’m out there, he’s out there, pumping iron with his mismatched 4- and 6-pound dumbbells. He wants to be strong because I want to be strong.
“Kids don’t anchor ambition; they amplify it. They extend our reach to fronts we might never set foot on ourselves.”
The same dynamic plays out in the spiritual realm. Nothing apart from the Spirit of God will make Christ more desirable to children than a father who delights himself in the Lord. Paternal affections are contagious, so make them clear and compelling. Let your children hear you singing his praise, reading his word, and thanking him for everything. Help them love God by loving God out loud in their presence. Build your home by modeling godly affections.
3. You discipline in your home on God’s behalf.
God entrusts parents to bring their children up “in the discipline [paideia] and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Godly paideia is the foundation of faithful homemaking and the privilege of parents. It involves immersing and enculturating a child into God’s ways grounded in his word (2 Timothy 3:16), so that the child’s inner person is conditioned and shaped, formed and molded to look more and more like Jesus (Romans 8:29).
Of course, paideia includes applying the rod. Trying to build a home without a rod is like trying to steer a ship with a busted rudder; when a storm comes, it is blown and tossed by every breath of wind. As God disciplines dads, dads discipline their kids (Hebrews 12:5–11). But godly paideia extends far beyond verbal and corporal correction to family worship and Christian education, reading great books and singing psalms, car conversations and work ethic. It involves bringing all of life in line with the triune God. When you practice godly paideia, you write your kids’ stories with Christ as the central character.
A faithful home rises on these pillars. Its construction demands creativity, labor, tenacity, vision — it demands, in short, a massive ambition to build. But once the pillars are in place, the faithful home becomes a fighting outpost of Christ’s kingdom.
Fight with Your Home Joyfully
Psalm 127 moves from faithfully building (verses 1–3) to joyfully fighting (verses 4–5). In verse 1, well-built homes rally together into well-defended cities. My friend brought this insight to light in a way I had never considered before. I desired to contend for the kingdom. I wanted to bring every idea captive to Christ, to wage war against the forces of darkness, to fight sin. But I hadn’t considered that, by God’s design, building inside my home might be the most effective means of fighting outside my home.
But the connection could hardly be more explicit: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” (Psalm 127:4–5). Why compare children to arrows? The choice is intentional. The psalmist does not say “sticks in the hand of a warrior” or “stones.” He chooses a highly crafted, carefully honed artifact of culture. Arrows require skilled labor. The head must be forged, shaped, and sharpened. The shaft must be grown, cut, soaked, and straightened. The fletching must be selected, arranged, attached, and trimmed. An arrow that flies true demands a tremendous amount of work and attention — just like dangerous children. Kids are a handful long before they are a quiverful.
And arrows are meant to be sent out. Kids aren’t swords, which stay in the hand, but arrows, which fly away to an intended target. They greatly extend the reach and the effectiveness of the warrior. They allow him to fight on multiple fronts, from a much greater distance.
Raising children well weaponizes them for advancing the gospel. Building well enables you to fight well. I wanted my stories to reenchant the world — but what if I raised sharp children who are renegades, mavericks, iconoclasts, insurgents, and terrors to all the dark enchantments of unbelief? Kids don’t anchor ambition; they amplify it. They extend our reach to fronts we might never set foot on ourselves. Oh, the happiness of the man who fills his quiver with sharp, shaped arrows!
Trust the Sovereign Homemaker
No one fills their quiver without reliance on God. He is the sovereign Homemaker behind all homemaking, the mighty Man of war behind all fighting (Exodus 15:3). According to Psalm 127, faithful building and fighting must be just that: full of faith.
If God doesn’t help build, our ambitions will amount to no more than “anxious toil,” useless and exhausting (Psalm 127:2). Hard work becomes huffy work, and rewarding labor becomes restless labor when we lean on worldly wisdom and imagine fruit depends on us. It doesn’t. Our King paves the way for non-anxious homemaking when he reminds us, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Do we take Psalm 127 seriously? God has designed faithful building to be a means of fruitful fighting. He loves to expand his kingdom one household at a time. What might God choose to do in the next generations if Christian parents pursue a holy ambition to build their homes? What books might be written, unbelievers converted, churches planted, peoples reached, schools opened, businesses founded, gardens planted, songs sung, beauties created? How far would we see the gospel of the kingdom spread? How many might rejoice in King Jesus?
I (still) have an ambition: to write good stories that change the world.
And I have four children under 5.
