Bag End, Hobbiton. April 13, Shire Year, 1418. - Gandalf is continuing his morning briefing of Frodo, having just mentioned the recent rise of the Shadow, his move from Mirkwood to Mordor, and his relentless search for the Ring. The conversation continues:

‘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 decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’”

Throughout my life I periodically have indulged in wishful-thinking: I have dreamed of having been born a century earlier, or perhaps several hundreds of years before, when the world (in my imagination) was much simpler and more to my liking than these days in which I find myself. Many of us long, I suspect, for days that never really were as we want to believe they were.

But God did not fall asleep on his watch, only to waken and discover that he was late in tossing me into life. I am where I belong. I do not get to choose the state of the church of my time, or the cultural battles that rage, or the theological slide that I perceive.

My – our – only decision is what Gandalf lays out: “what to do with the time that is given us.” Paul said as much, too, exhorting us to be always “making the most of your time, because the days are evil” (Eph 5:15-17). This means I must choose wisely and I must be diligent: I cannot live either in the past or the future; I can only live today and do what I may as long as it is called today.

These days may seem black and dark, but all days are so to those engaged in spiritual warfare. There is glorious light to behold one day, but not yet – not while the Enemy still opposes our King and his purposes. My job is to do as I’m told and not wish it were otherwise.



Namárië.