PROD Me

Lets be honest, if you are going to a fast food restaurant you don't expect to get "fresh" food.  Sure, the corporations will occasionally run adds saying they use fresh ingredients, but they don't believe it.  Neither do we.  What we are concerned about is how long the food we are being served as been around.  Ever had a french fry that has been sitting under a heat lamp for 45 minutes?  Yummy, right!  Or how about that sandwich that remembers when Reagan was president?  Tasty!  We have convinced our brains, and taste buds, that frozen burgers...and fries...and chicken is OK.  We just want the food hot and not eligible for Social Security.
Now days they don't make your burger till you order it.  However, they have cooked up the meat long before you pulled up to the drive-thru.  When I worked for McDonald's it was different (not better, mind you, just different).  Back in my fast food days we cooked up sandwiches before you ordered them and then gave them a life-span of ten minutes.  That's right, your Fillet-O-Fish had 600 seconds from the time I boxed it up to get on your tray.  For those unfortunate sandwiches that were not adopted within the ten minute time limit a fate worse than being eaten awaited - the trash can (the horror, the unspeakable horror!)
Needless to say management did not like food being put in the trash can.  Nor did they like customers waiting on their burgers.  The powers that be wanted enough food prepared that customers were served quickly (except for you freaks that wanted your sandwich different than everybody else's.  It was OK if you waited, and waited, and waited) but not so much that it was being thrown away.  No problem, if you are clairvoyant.  Unlike more dignified restaurants, where patrons are required to call in advance and tell you they are coming (and then only order what you told them was available), fast food joints never know how many customers they are going to have or when they will show up or what they will want to eat.  Thus was born the guessing game known as Production Control, or PROD for short.  The poor fool stationed on PROD had the enviable task of, well, controlling food production.  This was not for the faint or heart or those with weak constitutions.  Many employees knew that PROD was a fast train to nowhere and therefore went out of their way to appear intellectually unworthy of the challenge.  Most succeeded.  I failed.  So much so that my for many years I thought my name was PROD.
The worst thing that you could do on PROD was to get behind.  Once you started to run out of food it became very hard to catch back up.  To this day I still believe that there was a sign over the counter and at the drive-thru that said "We are currently out of Big Macs so please order 5 more."  When you got behind customers smelled blood in the water.  I swear, you could have ten hot (not fresh, remember, just hot), ready to eat cheeseburgers and the next five orders would all be for hamburgers.  When you got behind the rest of the staff started taking matters in their own hands.  It became the restaurant version of the Titanic with everybody scrambling for a seat on the proverbial lifeboat.  Front counter workers would start telling the grill crew what to make and those on the grill would start telling you what they were going to make.  It could get real ugly real fast. 
The key to being on PROD and not ending up in a mental hospital was attitude.  You had to appear to be in complete control all of the time.  Never let the other workers see you sweat, especially when you were guessing wrong about how much food needed to be produced.  As long as the rest of the employees believed you knew what you were doing they would not mutiny.  One whiff of fear and it was all over.  Confidence was the name of the game.  Or maybe it was just the illusion of confidence.
As a person of faith there are times when I feel very confident that God and I are on the same page.  No matter what happens that day I know I will be able to handle it.  Flat tire at rush hour, please!  Cell phone bill arrives and I discover that my child does not understand the meaning of limits on minutes, we can get through this.  My wife comes home in a really, really bad mood, well the Lord is my shepherd and we will find a way to those green pastures. 
There are, however, times when my confidence melts away, when the trails and temptations seem too much.  But I can't let other people see me like this.  I am a follower of Jesus, moreover I am an ordained minister.  What would folks think about me, about God, if they knew that today I am treading water in a sea of doubt and confusion?  So its time for the magic show and the illusion that I have it all under control.  But I don't and there are times when I am not sure I ever did.
Some of the best parts of the Bible are when the writers acknowledge before God and the whole world that they are struggling.  From the Psalmists all the way through to Jesus, yes Jesus, scripture bears witness to fear, uncertainty, and a complete lack of confidence, but also faith.  Faith is not about always being confident and faith is certainly not the illusion of confidence.  Rather, faith is what keeps us hanging on when nothing makes sense and we are not sure we will ever figure it out.  Faith is something deeper and stronger and more powerful than mere confidence.  Faith is a gift from God that comes at those times when we are the least confident. 
Slowly I am learning that what is required of me, as a follower of Jesus, is to bear witness to my faith in times of doubt rather than create the illusion that I have it all together.  For that illusion prevents other people from seeing God at work in my life.