Monday started off with a bang. Monday's are the days inmates can turn in their sheets and pillow cases for new ones, so mostly everyone on the tier, (well not everyone), turns in their sheets for clean ones.
This particular Monday, Jay and I started our routine morning devotions at the table in front of the tier and were asked to move by the inmate who counts the sheets. Now mind you, all that is required to count the sheets is a piece of paper and pencil. Inmates come by and dump their used sheets in a trash can while the counter marks off how many sheets. Apparently he needed the entire table to sit there and put slashes next to inmates bed numbers. OK, no problem, every other Monday we oblige and move to the middle of the tier to finish our devotions, prayers, and writing. But, this morning, that table was in use, so we had to go to the very back of the tier to do our business. Now here's where the BANG begins. The back of the tier and the front of the tier are like night and day.
In the back of the tier, the warm air is filled with smoke. Any attempt to blow the smoke out of the non-smoking tier ricochets off of the metal screen back into the area causing it to linger. In the front of the tier, even when it's humid, the giant fan keeps the air circulated, though warm, its breathable.
In the back, because of the combination of the smoking, and the TV, and the "habitual" hang out, talking recklessly regardless of the time, and the practice of going so far as picking up other people's "butts" off the ground for a hit. OK, regardless of all of this, I just so happened to be reading Proverbs and I started to think about my environment and what is being accomplished here. The scene in the back goes on all day and most of the night, rehabilitation and corrections at its finest.
So the scene in the back got me really contemplating the purpose of discipline and is the "system" accomplishing its purpose? I'd have to say NO based on observation and then I realized the same goes for when God corrects us. If we do not receive correction openly and cherish it, we are not gaining anything from it. I believe the "system" corrects because it cares for society, but inmates despise this method deeming it ineffective. This is similar to the Lord's purpose for punishment. The discipline of the Lord is the other side of His grace. "My son do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights."
We should hold tender this correction and the Lord's correction, for they are one in the same in purpose, both disciplining because of a form of love. So before the second-hand smoke and the volume of the TV damage my organs, I said, "Thank you Jesus for my correction" and returned to the front of the tier to report to work. Happy Monday!
~~GOD DISCIPLINES THOSE HE LOVES~~~`