In the fantastical land of make-believe where wishful thinking is highly prized, sentiments like this are gleefully celebrated:

“I’m not interested in competing with anyone. I hope we all make it.”

Whether you are ‘interested’ in competing or not, you’re going to compete. Resources are not infinite. The loaf of bread in your kitchen is there because you were the first one to reach it in the grocery store. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this—you won the “Race For That Loaf Of Bread” and whoever came in 2nd got zilch. And before you raise your objection…if there are 10 loaves of bread on the shelf, whoever comes in 11th gets zilch. The point is, somebody always loses. Deciding not to buy bread doesn’t make competition vanish. It just makes you hungry.

But cheer up! Competition is not a ‘bad thing.’ The bread maker’s competition will eliminate the bad bread, leaving the better bread for you and your family. So you should stop saying, “I hope we all make it.” That’s not true.

You don’t want the scam artist calling your grandmother to succeed in getting her bank numbers. You don’t want the woman trying to sell her kids for drug money to successfully locate a buyer. You don’t want whoever you didn’t vote for to succeed in becoming President. You don’t want EVERYBODY to ‘make it.’

We Christians love competition because it separates wheat from chaff. It separates sheep from goats. It separates sinners from saints. It’s silly to hope ‘we all make it’ when we’ve been told that wicked people are gonna fail. Rather than wishing there was no competition, it would be better to join the winning team.

(Matthew 7:13) “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”