Out of the Hobbit Hole and into the wild...

     This past week I’ve been visiting my wonderful grandparents trying to soak up this time while I’m stateside. While it’s been really relaxing it’s also given me time to think and pray on this upcoming change. My heart has leapt with excitement to fear. I’ve had time here to rest, watch TV, spend time with family, and read. I had been feeling such anxiety over the uncertainty with visas, paperwork and all those technical things.

    But my favorite movies, the Lord of the Rings series, started playing on TNT, I love these movies so much not only because they make me think of nights curled up with my family as a child; reading them wondering if Frodo would make it to Mordor or if Bilbo was going to leave his Hobbit hole, but they get me thinking about my own journey. 

 
 I was watching Return of the King and watching Frodo struggle with Sam with no energy, no heart, left in the fire, dirt and evil of Mordor.

     I wondered if he wished he had never left his home, his safe beautiful home where nothing of exception every happened. I realized Frodo would never choose differently. Because of the truth and reality before him. Just as the temptation of staying in his beautiful Hobbit hole failed to keep Bilbo away from the wild. His heart longed for wonder and adventure. In the end, his life held more meaning than it ever had.

   
     This began to give me much comfort and courage. We as believers, as those who do life in the branches, are met with this compelling truth. A wild love shows up at our door un-invited, and beckons us out of our hobbit hole and into the wild. Yet we are tempted to stay, and many of us do. I mean I understand; watching the horror our heroes endure make me wish for a hobbit hole, or thinking of my uncertain future in The Jungle. Yet….if I could ever choose who to be, it would be Aragorn or Frodo, not the people who missed it all in the Shire. I could choose a normal future, chase the American dream, white picket fence and all. It would be easier,  yet empty.

     See our King knows us better, just like Gandalf knew Bilbo. They know what our true wild heart really searches for, what we were made for. It’s made for a life with our Father, a radical adventure bringing His kingdom to this earth, doing things that seem crazy to this world. So what are we going to do as people of the Vine? Are we going to stay away from those terrible uncomfortable adventures, or get out into the wild, into the will of our King? For me, the wild is calling...

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”- J.R.R Tolkien The Hobbit