I want to earn significantly more than I do. Some of that is providing for my family and some of it, honestly, is just wanting more. Where does ambition become greed?

“And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.”

Baruch was Jeremiah's secretary, and he had just finished writing down prophecies announcing the collapse of everything he had built a career around. He complains, understandably. God's answer is brief and almost tender: this is not the season for great things, and your life will be preserved. It is not a blanket rule against ambition. It is a word to a particular man about what his moment could hold.

“And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.”

Paul writes to a young church in a busy port city, and his advice sounds almost anticlimactic: live quietly, mind your own business, work with your hands. The goal he names is twofold, an honest reputation with outsiders and lacking nothing. Provision is treated as a completely legitimate aim. What is missing from his picture is the restlessness of needing to be seen as someone who has arrived.