By Adar Kielczewski

Did you know that at one point in his life, Mr. Herbert Armstrong was vain? He said he was “entirely too proud” when he was a young man. But God used his ambition and drive, although selfishly motivated at the time, and changed it into a positive force to lead a worldwide work. If Mr. Armstrong hadn’t been as driven, God wouldn’t have been able to use him.

I was thinking recently about my own deficiency in this area of drive and ambition, and how at times I give up or don’t give as much as I could. I was recently talking to a friend about why we thought it was better to err on the side of self-confidence rather than lack guts. Mr. Armstrong talked about that, too.

“I have often wondered if it is not really better for a young upstart to be conceited, self-confident, cocky—and with it, ambitious, energetic in trying to accomplish something, than to be an ambitionless, spineless, lazy, shiftless fellow utterly lacking in spark, drive, and the zeal to try to accomplish something worthwhile,” Mr. Armstrong mused in his autobiography.

Mr. Armstrong went on to say that those upstarts don’t necessarily have the right goals, but “at least they are mentally alive and not dead!” This really struck me; because I thought of how many times my friends and I spend an opportunity to get together just sitting in front of the television watching another movie. Or how people just sit and surf the web for hours. A lot of the world’s distractions do our thinking for us; as a result, we can become mentally dead.

If we are mentally alive and active, at least we can be used as God humbles us. Mr. Armstrong said those with gumption “are already in the habit of exerting enough energy so that, turned at last in the right direction, something is really accomplished.”

Mr. Armstrong’s vanity was something he had to overcome. “But, if there was ego and cocky conceit, there also was ambition, determination, fire, drive, and honest and sincere effort toward what then seemed to be a right goal,” wrote Mr. Armstrong. Later, that self-confidence was replaced by faith, but the fire and ambition never left.

Men especially need ambition. “A good leader acts confident. He speaks with a self-assured voice, walks uprightly, trusts his own judgment, and is not plagued with doubts and fears,” wrote Aubrey Andelin in Man of Steel and Velvet.

I dare say a lot of us young people err on the side of being too wishy-washy, too listless and uncaring and unmotivated; we sometimes mistake that for humility—few of us are too bold! God wants us to be bold, active, productive—truly humble about ourselves, but totally confident in Him!

Just remember, you can tame a wild horse, but you can’t ride a lame one.

If you’ve missed the other Armstrong Anecdotes, check out our History section.