I was watching TV last night when a commercial for Goodwill came on. The man on the commercial told me that I should act responsibly when donating to charity. “Okay”, I thought, “I’m on board with that.” But then he went on to talk about other charities. “Did you know” the man said, “most of your donated goods don’t benefit the local community?”
This struck me as an odd thing to say.
Goodwill didn’t run a commercial saying, “we focus on the local, let us help!” Or “Goodwill, serving the local community with 84% of our proceeds” or some such thing. Instead they focused on tearing down other charities.
We all need to believe we’re relevant to the future. We all need to believe we have a purpose. And I suspect Goodwill is feeling threatened by other charities. So they did what seemed natural - strike back by tearing down the competition.
Why is it that we see ourselves in competition with others instead of cooperation?
When you’re living your life for God there’s a more important purpose than your current task. And that purpose is making sure we’re living in a “Kingdom way.” A way that reflects who Jesus is. Sometimes this means that no matter how essential you may have been to a service, a process, or a job, there may come a time where we need to let that go. That’s true of Goodwill, and it’s true of our lives.
Our hope comes from God, not from the task we’re working on. When we confuse the two we end up doing more damage to the causes we’re trying to serve. We allow ourselves to confuse formality with faith, worship with religion, and belief with dogma.
And in the end we end up in competition, instead of cooperation.
