Burning Platform Unto Burning Ambition – Somebody Stop Me!

I’m a mad Jim Carrey fan. Every one of his movies is a hit in my opinion. His role in The Mask was particularly poignant for me. I recalled as I was thinking on this topic of outrageous success and the total fulfilment of goals how Carrey boomed in the dance scene, “Somebody stop me!” And that’s the enthusiasm we need to have to reach our goals—to make the change sustainable.

I’m actually very frustrated with myself. This feeling is nothing new. I have come to a frustrating nexus—a centre of pain knowing that one goal eludes me. One goal, for a time is conquered, and then it isn’t. I maintain an integrity of purpose for so long and then, at a moment of weakness, the resolve is lost. I feel hopeless.

“It is not good to eat too much honey… He who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.” –Proverbs 25:27a-28 (Amplified).

The fact is I’ve always wanted to be a fit leviathan, and my love of food often gets in the way—somehow I’ve been cursed with being able to consume monstrous amounts of food. I just don’t get full or sick when others would. This seems my last prevailing natural weakness of desire. I’m sick of doing well for a month or two only to fall off the wagon eventually!

Do you identify in some way with the struggle I have? I think many do, and many have other differing problems. But, I believe there’s a way through. I’ll never give up that thought. ‘I’ll get up again, over and over,’ to paraphrase Madonna.

What I have is a burning platform situation. The ground upon which I stand is being consumed from under me and I need to move, and quickly at that! That’s not my real problem—I love the burning platform which is impetus for change.

My real problem is internalising my change so that the burning platform converts into a ever-burning ambition fuelled by my own intrinsic (healthy) desire. I’ve done this with many other problems and goals. The last one remains.

I find Paul inspiring in the famous 1 Corinthians 13 passage. He links love to maturity—the ability to finally love (and act) as an adult should love (and act):

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.” –1 Corinthians 13:11 (Amplified).

Seeing maturity as a pursuit of necessity, certainly with regard to looking back from an end of life perspective, is really the only way to live life—challenging and hard, yes, but no easy, soft life is ever that rewarding. Looking back from eternity upon the waste we put up with… that’s not a good thought.

God calls us to mature. He calls us to eradicate the weaknesses of the natural and carnal, to put on the Spiritual—that which satisfies better than any food, substance or created thing.

But, for the Spirit to convert this into something real and sustainable, we need to engage our minds and hearts and find out, for ourselves, what it is for us to covert that burning platform into a flaming ambition burning ever-bright. This is no easy and straightforward journey—but one infinitely worthwhile. Eternally-speaking, we have no other sane choice. We live this life to mature, period. Enduring or putting up with the immature is to want spiritual emptiness.

We must let our goals consume us or they simply won’t stick. Come on, we mean business now!

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

I have to acknowledge Mr. Peter Fuda, Leadership Guru, of The Alignment Partnership for the metaphors of burning platform together with burning ambition. You can find TAP at http://www.tap.net.au/