Or, “What Jimmy the Bank Robbing Pimp taught me about trusting God.“
I met “Jimmy” forty years ago when I was a chaplain in a Toronto jail. Jimmy was in on two armed robbery charges – he was also a pimp. Inside, Jimmy was the strongest and toughest guy among 40 men on his range. Jimmy ran the range, but after a few months he became a sincere Christian.
Jimmy continued to rule the range but he also held morning Bible studies in his cell. As time went on, a succession of three of his roommates also became Christians. “Are you muscling these guys?” I had to ask.
“No! I just tell them if you want to meet the Big Guy on the street, you need to have a connection. Jesus is the connection to meet God,” Jimmy explained.
After a while Jimmy made bail and was gone but quickly returned with another robbery charge. He wasn’t very successful as a criminal or as a christian!
One day Jimmy looked troubled and said, “I don’t think that woman of mine loves me.”
“What woman – you have three?” I replied, a bit surprised.
“My main woman!” he said with an emphasis that left me with no desire for further explanation.
All visits at the Don were through the glass.
His “main woman” wanted Jimmy out for the summer, so she asked him to to put off the trial on his first charges until the fall, and to go for bail on the third charge in May. That made sense to me. She wanted to be with him before a possible conviction and lengthy sentence.
“I can’t get out now!” he exclaimed. “I need to stay in here until my roots are deep enough – so I won’t screw up when I do get out!”
Jimmy was showing me the difference between an “escape plan” and a “release plan”.
“Okay. I’m locked up…
“What’s my fastest way out of here?”
It makes sense to try to get out asap if you’re busted. The only people who are thankful to be in jail are those people who know that it’s better for them to be inside for the time being. Jimmy realized that despite being a semi-successful criminal with at least one woman who loved him, he was better off staying inside while preparing to live free outside.
So now when people ask me to pray for their court or to be released, I often tell them about Jimmy.
“Okay, I’ll pray,” I say to my friends, “But do you want to live the same way that got you in here, or do you want to live differently?”
Almost everyone says they want to be different, to be better. So the unspoken prayer of their heart is actually that God would get them out and help them to do better outside.
“That might mean staying longer and growing stronger so you can succeed outside,” I tell them. “I know you have every desire and intention to stay clean and live right, but you can’t do that if you’re the same person you were before you came inside. I bet you’ve already tried to do better a bunch of times and couldn’t. So what’s different this time?”
“To really be different outside, you have to learn to be different while you’re inside. And that means learning to trust God to give you what you need each day – even it that means living inside one more day.”
Everyone has to learn that God will give us everything we need at the right time. Jesus taught us to ask our Heavenly Father for daily bread – for what we need this 24 hours. It is simple, difficult and necessary.
Alcoholic Anonymous’ Step 3 suggests we turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand Him. This means totally surrendering and trusting a Power greater than ourselves to do for us exactly what we need in every circumstance – whether we find it enjoyable or extremely difficult.
To be able to do this day after day on the outside where old temptations abound, people must learn to live by faith while still inside.
The most important part of a release plan is trusting our Creator every day, one day at a time. I learned that from my friend Jimmy.