Vicarious Service

I just learned about an enormous charity project, one even bigger than the TeamTrees project of late 2019, wherein MrBeast raised over $20 Million to plant over 20 Million trees. Now MrBeast is raising $30 Million to remove 30 Million pounds of trash from the ocean, and I just have to say that I really love the idea of these projects and what they mean for the world. And you know what? I think Christ love it too.

Granted, during His mortal life, Jesus Christ focused more on helping people than on saving the planet, but before it, He created this planet, and I think He would want us to save and protect it (besides, the planet probably didn't need saving back then).

I also briefly doubted the value of donating money to a charity project instead of helping the project more directly. Not many problems are solved just by throwing money at them, and it seems far more moral to do something good than to pay someone else to do it. Still, I'm comforted by the thought of Jesus commanding the rich young ruler to donate money to the power and by the thought of our own Fast Offerings. Naturally, volunteer work is valuable, but money is, too. And while donating money may not feel as meaningful to me as serving directly does, it still does good. That money goes toward supporting the people and projects who do the service, so donating money is kinda like serving vicariously.

So, I'm going to donate money to MrBeast's TeamSeas charity drive, and I hope you do, too. It's good to do service, and I believe that doing vicarious service by donating money to worthy causes is good, too.