The ATM

I am still young enough to remember the days before ATMs were prevalent in rural northeast Texas. I was sixteen and had my own checking account to deposit the massive amounts of cash (by a sixteen year old's standards) that I made at McDonalds.  Before the magical money boxes dispensed cash, you had to go into the bank and write a check for "CASH" to get dollar bills out of your checking account.  Standing there at the teller's window, you had to be sure that you had enough cash in your account to back up the check that you were essentially writing to the bank.  If not, you were faced with the crippling embarrassment of a human being (usually a pretty girl) telling you that you don't have enough cash in your account to cover the check. 

At the ATM it is a different story--slightly.  If you want cash, you still have to have enough deposited in your account in order to receive cash.  However, if you ask for more than you've got, you simply get an error message saying that you have "insufficient funds".  I'll take an automated error message rather than a person telling me that I have asked for more than I have given.  At the ATM, you can only receive up to the amount of cash that's available in your account.

Lately, I have started to feel like a human ATM. 

Every day, people walk into my office for help in filling basic needs such as help with utility bills, rent, diapers, food, clothing, etc.  Some days, it is easy to gauge which people are legitimately trying to improve their life and making positive decisions but have come up a little short this month in making ends meet versus the people that are simply using our services so that they won't be forced to work hard and make positive decisions. 

Other days, it's difficult to tell those people apart.

Generally, I'm a trusting person.  That type of trusting attitude can be dangerous in this business.  So, when someone comes in and breaches my trust, I tend to spiral out of control and become temporarily untrusting of everyone that walks in.  I begin to feel as though every person that sits across from me is using me as an ATM that simply dispenses goods and money.  I feel like the clients' expectations of me are to dispense the goods and services that they need and that they only "deposit" they have to cover their needs is "entitlement." 

As you can probably guess, that attitude on my part quickly leads to resentment.  It leads me to resent my work.  It leads me to resent my calling.  It leads me to resent the people that need help.  It leads me to resent my employees.  It leads me to resent my board.  It leads me to resent my supporters. 

It leads me to resent God.

After a time of having those feelings, I tend to go on the hunt for a different job.  (When I say 'hunt' I mean that I look on LinkedIn or in the newspaper classifieds for jobs that fit my skill set.  It is the job hunting equivalent of looking for a new car by simply driving down the street in front of the dealership without ever getting out of the car.)  In my 'hunt' for a different job I list all the qualities that I want to have in my new job.  Pretty quickly I realize that all the qualities that I want in a job exist at the very place that I'm ready to leave in my rear view mirror. 

Once I have that realization that I am at my dream job, the only thing that needs to change is my attitude.  I'm often taken back to the parable that Jesus gave of the sower in Matthew 13.  One of the interesting things about that story is that the sower spread the seeds out regardless of the type of soil they landed on.  The sower had very little control over how receptive the soil would be so he just spread the seeds out regardless of where they would land. 

Therein lies a powerful lesson for non-profits.  I would certainly hope that all non-profits seek to serve the people that have legitimate needs.  However, we can't read into the hearts of the folks that walk though the door.  We have no control of the soil that we spread the seeds of our good work into.  So, we need only to concern ourselves with spreading the seed and doing our good work.  We can have certain qualifications of people that are eligible for our services (ex. residency restrictions, limits on assistance, etc.) so that we are better stewards of what we have.  But, we cannot get into the business of trying to judge the hearts and intentions of the people that are eligible for our services. 

If we do try to make judgments on hearts and intentions, we're playing a losing game and not only does it add unnecessary stress to our already stressed lives but we're alienating the people we serve and potentially the donors that support us.