Am I in control? I sure hope not.

In my current Day Job, I work with inmates in a correctional facility.  It can be a bit of a challenge, in that essentially my job is to try to convince hundreds of very large, very violent toddlers to comply with the rules and regulations that other people (who don't commonly deal with inmates) create.

I have a reputation for being strict, and one day an inmate stopped to talk to me while I was manning a metal detector.  He tried to convince me that I should be less strict through two general arguments. First, he made some moderately subtle threats about what happens to overly-strict correctional officers during prison riots.  Second, he actually tried to convince me that it wasn't the staff but the inmates who were running the institution, and that it was important for staff to not displease them (referencing argument number one).  Inmates, he said, were the largest controlling force in any correctional institution because they were more numerous and violent than staff.

Though it seems laughably naive, I got the impression that the inmate at least partially believed it.  While there was certainly some part of his little speech that was self-interested and trying to get me to relax my guard, I could see that from his point of view inmates were far more in control than they actually were.

From his point of view, even though inmates are told by staff when and where to eat, sleep, work, and play, the inmates are in control because they run a few black-market side games.  They gamble, they exchange stamps for homemade food items, they fight, they compete for prestige, they affiliate with gangs, they conspire, and most of all they gossip.  The inmate is surrounded by inmate behavior, while staff only intrude upon it occasionally, making it seem natural that inmates are far more in control than they really are.

Sometimes I wonder if this point of view is mirrored in our views toward God.  Do we think, sometimes, that we have control over things that we do not?  Do we inflate our own importance simply because we are surrounded by the works of our hands?  Do we fail to see the eternal because we are surrounded by the mundane?

If inmates really and truly did control a correctional institution, it would quickly degenerate into an anarchic dystopia where no correction or rehabilitation could occur.  If we mortals actually controlled this world, the same would happen.

To be perfectly honest, if I controlled every aspect of my own life, I'm pretty sure I would make a royal mess of it in the first ten minutes.   I don't understand my own self enough to make good decisions about what trials I should face, what blessings I should receive, or how I should interact with others.

Thankfully, I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and provides me everything I need.  He provides me with the air I breathe (and the lower brain functions with which to breathe it),  He provides me with blessings and trials with which I can learn and grow.  He has provided me the Gospel, the Way he wants me to interact with others (and essentially, with myself).  And He provides me grace when I fall short, allowing me to rely on the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ to gain eternal life and, over the course of eternity, become like Him.

That's why I'm glad I'm not in control.  I'm not content to be in control if the only thing I have control over is a two man cell with a poker game and some candy bars.  So I'll do with the Lord tells me to do--I'll go to work, to class, obey all the rules which some say are petty, and rehabilitate from my daily fall, someday to be paroled by my Lord into true Freedom.  Abide with me, Lord, and though I may fall daily, I pray that You take my heart.