Hobbit thoughts

I just finished reading “The Hobbit” for the one-hundredth time. Few books make me feel the rise and fall of the main character like that one does. Every time, I remember my first emotions of my first reading of the book. ‘Tenacious’ describes the hold that story has on me.
But it’s not the book causing the emotion, nor is it Tolkien’s keen grasp on the English language. Rather it’s the adventure, the journey. Seeing Bilbo go from introspective, easy living, comfort to hard-pressed scared, expectancy reminds me of us.
Think about it, remember back to when you first believed, if you can, indeed if you do. Life before was an introspective tangle where the most you expected was easy living and comfort. But then came the Gospel like Gandalf and turned everything upside down. You were thrown almost unwillingly into an adventure you barely understood nor cared for.
But as the journey continued and as the danger became more real you approached your ‘Misty Mountains’ where you riddled with the devil and won. All the while learning more and trusting your ‘fortunate luck.’
Coming then to your ‘Mirkwood’ of despair and depression, where friends are lost, then recovered, only to be lost and found again. Where darkness reigns and your heart longs for the place you were before the Gospel came to sweep you away, because it looks abundantly safer than where you are.
On to your ‘Lonely Mountain’ where the dragon lives and the fight against him proves to be an acidic fight against a violent foe. But this is the reason for coming, this is the reason for leaving home and kindred, to kill the dragon and take the reward.
So is your fight with sin every battle, every mountain, valley, and deep dark wood. Compelled by the reward to journey through what we do not know and fight the foe of sin. Each sin has its distinct journey to its defeat, yet the reward remains unchanged.
‎Though it’s cliché to say we realize we couldn’t have done it without our friends fighting by our side. And when the calm has come we are shown the ‘fortunate luck’ we trusted throughout our trek was by design.
But then there is the reward. The Reward. The same Reward Moses looked forward to. The same Reward that Paul, Peter, & Timothy longed for. The same Reward that Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon, Lewis, and Tolkien looked forward to. It is the reason we journey though hard-pressed and scared. We look to the Reward.