Kinda Nostalgic

I started The Lord of the Rings again this last Saturday. It's like walking down an old familiar path from my youth, in a way nostalgic and in another remindful - remindful about the person I once was and who I am now, which is revealing of the changes that've taken place.

Do you remember the things you got excited about as a kid? For me it was Star Wars for a little while then it was Lord of the Rings. I had action figures of both - the Lord of the Rings ones are still in my closet at my parent's house, I gave the Star Wars ones away. Remember the way we'd get caught up in our fantasy worlds of wherever we'd imagined?

Part of it was innocence and part of it was ignorance. Innocence in that we'd never lost love before, never been betrayed before and never known uncertainty. Ignorance in that we didn't know how the wide world operated, we didn't know the time demands or the way our dreams would be warped or killed.

But at the same time growing up has been an experience I don't want to trade for anyone else's. The lost loves, the time demands, the way my dreams have been shifted or changed or even killed (I suck at math therefore the dream of astronaut was a lil far fetched) it's all served a purpose, a plan, to bring me to where I am today. Does that mean it's all figured out? Definitely not. Does that mean every aspect of my life is the way it should be? No. It just means that I'm content with the adventures God has placed in my life - even though some feel daunting.

I underlined this in my book yesterday,

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The enemy is fast becoming strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it. We should be very hard put to it, even if it were not for this dreadful chance."

The Last Battle

“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” ~ C.S. Lewis

I finished reading The Last Battle on Saturday morning. I’d begun it towards the end of the summer in preparation for a sermon, but had left the last chapter unread. It’s the chapter wrapping the entire Chronicle of Narnia series up; bringing it to a close with one tremendous repeated line, “Further up and further in.”

It’s easy to loose sight of the goal, the aim. Through curves in the road and the tall hedges, mountains or the sea, we don’t always have a clear view of the end. But there are times when we see it, when we know exactly where our aim is and why it should be there, when all of life falls into place and we run further up and further into the plan and glory of God.

But the opposite of this is true too. When we don’t see. When we don’t desire God. When we have tried to replace him with title, lovers, family, events and the like. When our defining point is an unsettled heart. Even still we are traveling further up and further into the plan and the glory of God, though it might feel like a trudge rather than a run.

Yet we aim to be satisfied by God. No. We earnestly hope with a longing expectation to be satisfied by God.

We know this is the dream, and the night is far-gone. We know a new day will come and shine out all the brighter. We know the term is far spent and the freedom of the holidays is upon us. But they are not here yet and thus we fight the good fight of faith. Thus we lean upon our band of brothers, those fellow Christians, to carry us down the road just a little further to see both the beauty of the Savior and what we’ve been saved from.