I’m currently reading The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, and it is such a brilliant work. I actually I started with The Hobbit, earlier this year, and have moved into The Lord of the Rings in recent months. I’ve seen the movies of course, which I love, but the books, as is usually the case, have so much more packed into them.
I’ve deliberately read them slowly because behind the great story and imagery and detail, there is a spiritual undertone about life, and about our faith. And so, there is much to contemplate when reading, much to reflect on.
To me, it’s about emerging out of the darkness, the darkness of sin and the enslavement to sin in our lives. We each have our ring that we latch on to, that we cannot do without, the vices that weigh us down and burden us, no matter how much we want to rid ourselves of them. They have a power over us. They enshroud us in darkness, a darkness that we cannot overcome alone.
We become blind to the Light and the Love of God.
And so, enter Jesus. God comes to be one of us through Jesus, and He experiences being human, and everything good and bad along with it. And He brings His Light and His Love into the world and into our midst. He comes to us through other people, to help us through our darkness, to help us carry the burden.
This is what I love about The Lord of the Rings, that the lead character Frodo does not ultimately succeed on his own. He needs the fellowship around him, he needs the help of others, and in the end, it is his companion that ultimately helps him. It is not Frodo himself that succeeds. Left alone, he would fail, but it is the people in place around him, even those who you might consider his enemy, who ultimately and unknowingly work together through a sort of divine providence to help him succeed and remove the burden from his shoulders, and bring him out of the darkness. (Hopefully that is enough detail without being a spoiler to those who have not read the book or seen the movie…)
Jesus comes to us in the same way, as our companion, but yet He comes to us physically through the people in our lives – our friends, our family, our spouse, our co-workers, strangers… There is a Divine Providence, where certain people come into our lives at specifically the right time, and where certain circumstances happen and when looking back you say to yourself – yeah, that was not of my doing, but of One greater than I.
You have to let things fall into place, and simply have ultimate faith in the goodness of Christ as your companion on this journey to guide you through, trying to do the best you can, and trust that He will provide for you along the way. When you start trying to do it yourself, you will fail.
There is darkness about in the world around us, that is no secret. When we find ourselves lost in this darkness, we must look for Him. We look for Him in the people around us, that come into our life. God is there, He is always there. Don’t try to do it yourself. Trust in that fact, and He will lead you out of the darkness and ease the burden, and together, we will succeed in casting away those things that weigh us down, that seek to destroy us, and in the process, grow closer to Him.
