Prison is a rough place, and thankfully, I don’t know that from personal experience. Yet every movie I see involving prison scares me. Certainly, the greatest difficulty of that life can have more to do with the treatment by your fellow inmates than with the loss of liberty that goes with your time there. I think it is most difficult for those with less than life sentences, for their thoughts, hopes and plans force them to think ahead to life past imprisonment. But the inmates who know that they will certainly die in prison seem to adjust to the life they are faced with.
Years ago, a tennis student who had been a physician told me a story that stayed with me. One of his patients was a quadriplegic, and as described to me, was one of the most upbeat people the physician ever had come in contact with. The physician asked him how long he had been a quadriplegic and what had caused it. When the man had been a teenager, he and his sister were riding in the backseat of the car, with their mother driving. He and his sister were arguing, and his mother kept yelling at them to stop. When they didn’t, the mother pulled over the car, pulled out a gun and shot them! His sister died, his mother went to prison and he became a quadriplegic! I remember when hearing the story, I expected a different end, something along the lines of his mother losing control of the car when she turned to yell at the children and in the ensuing accident, he became a quadriplegic. What a horrible story! But the young man endured that amazing obstacle and found happiness. My tennis student reminded me of the lesson that he learned from the story. We all have a balance point, a place of stasis. If you are a happy person, you will find that happiness again, regardless of the difficulties that come your way. If you are a depressed person, that is the place you will return to, as well.
We seem to put judgments on situations. Would it always be rough to be a quadriplegic? Would a person born with blindness be able to grasp what they are missing, or would they be content in the life they always had known? Would being a prisoner always be a negative?
34 for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.
Hebrews 10:34
8 Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, 9 yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you—being such a one as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ—
Philemon 8-9
Paul tells us that he is a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and he is not alone in that capacity. It was an easy description for Paul, as he was literally a prisoner in his life, as well. The word for prisoner in Greek denotes the binding, or the prisoner who is bound. Paul also tells us that he is a “bondservant” of Jesus Christ, and that word is the same for “slave.” Our society gives us negative connotations of all three of those words, prisoner, slave and servant. Regardless of how our society sees the words, those stations are gifts of God. How many prisoners worry about where their next meal will come from or if they will be able to put a roof over their heads?
While we as believes are bound to Christ Jesus, it is not the weighty connection of a ball and chain that tethers us. Instead, we are bound to Jesus Christ with a lifeline of support. He is the parachute we wear with our plane going down, but instead of descending to the broken world below, He puts the wind in our sails and lifts us up to a new life in Him. I am so thankful that He captured my heart and made me His prisoner! My needs are all supplied by Jehovah-Gire!
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