Ep. 150: Ryan Tinetti on quiet ambition.
Ambition isn’t the enemy. But we can reframe it.
This week on MercyCast, I sit down with Ryan Tinetti, author of The Quiet Ambition. We talk about the quiet line from First Epistle to the Thessalonians that has haunted him for years: make it your ambition to live quietly.
That verse doesn’t trend.
It won’t grow your platform.
It won’t help you build a brand.
But it might change your life.
Ryan shares the moment early in ministry when ambition pushed him to the edge—literally landing him in the ER with what he thought was a heart attack. It wasn’t. It was a panic attack. The kind that shows up when you believe everything depends on you.
We talk about the lie that louder equals faithful. About the subtle pressure—even in ministry—to build something impressive for God. About how the Kingdom often moves more slowly than we want. And how God usually works through small obedience rather than big moments.
We also talk about falling. Not failing—falling. Ryan tells a story about learning to cross-country ski in Michigan and a friend telling him, “That was a good fall.” It stuck with him. Because the Christian life isn’t about never falling. It’s about learning to fall into the arms of Christ.
We wrestle with the tension between ambition and humility. Scripture doesn’t call us to laziness. But it does call us to a different kind of ambition—the kind aimed at pleasing God rather than elevating ourselves.
A quiet ambition.
One that looks like:
faithfulness in your vocation
carving away at your small corner of the Kingdom
trusting that God is doing more than you can see
We talk about why verses like “Be still and know that I am God” from the Book of Psalms can feel threatening in a culture built on striving.
Because if we stop striving…
What if we’re forgotten?
And yet the gospel tells a different story. God meets us not in spectacle but through ordinary means—Word, water, bread, and wine.
In the quiet.
In the mundane.
In the places we usually overlook.
By the end, Ryan offers two simple practices that resist the culture of hurry:
Use the crockpot. Let something take time.
Take a walk without earbuds. Just you and God.
No platform.
No applause.
Just faithfulness.
And maybe that’s where the real work of the Kingdom happens.
Listen to the full episode:
For more conversations like this one, check out my book, Vulnerable: Rethinking Human Trafficking.