You would never guess it to look at her, but my sweet little
10 year old daughter is a huge Lord of the Rings fan. She couldn’t wait for the Hobbit movie to be
released last month, and on opening day, dressed in her cute pink coat and
scarf and her favorite kitty-cat shirt, she waltzed into the movie theater and
reveled at the sight of Gandalf, Bilbo, and the gang beating up on orcs and
goblins and all other manner of foul creatures.
Her one request over Christmas vacation was to watch ALL of the Lord of
the Rings movies again. And, she and her
dad are hard core about the whole thing – They only watch the extended special
edition versions which are significantly longer than the originals.
I, on the other hand, am not so fond of the Tolkien
trilogy. I typically make it through
about the first third of the movie, then fall asleep, and then wake up again
right at the end. Such was the case last
night as we finished up Return of the King.
I woke up just in time to see Frodo struggling up the mountain with Sam
cheering him on and encouraging him to destroy the ring. And, while I know that there are lots of
lessons to be learned from these fables, I was really struck by a couple of
things as I watched Frodo and Sam sit there on the big rock and watch the world
crashing in around them.
The first was Frodo’s perseverance. He was determined to keep going when most
people would have given up or given in. He
was focused on the task that had been given to him. In this day and age that we live in, we have
so many distractions and so many options that it’s easy to just quit what you’re
doing and take a different direction. It’s
hard to persevere. It’s much easier to
bounce from one thing to another, never really committing to one particular
path.
You see it with kids who start working on homework only to
receive a text message which then leads them to check facebook which reminds
them that they wanted to post a photo to instagram which leads to another
friend texting them about the photo that they just posted – and three hours
later, while they’ve had lots of fun, they still haven’t finished their
homework (not that this has ever happened in my house, of course…).
You see it on resumes when interviewing prospects for a
job. On most resumes that I see, the
average length of time a person has spent at a single job is 2 or 3 years. The tendency is to jump from job to job =
always looking for something that is more exciting or something that offers
more money. And, while change can be
good, there’s something to be said for sticking with the same job for 20-plus
years like my parents did back in the day…
However, the other thing that stands out is that Frodo would
never have made it without Sam. It’s
much easier to keep going when you have a friend that will stand beside you and
encourage you and even carry you when the going gets tough. We all need friends who will catch our vision
and pursue it right along with us – as if it were their very own. As Americans, we tend to have a lone-ranger,
do-it-myself mentality. But, when the
going gets tough, even the Lone Ranger needs Tonto. If we can learn how to share our hopes and
dreams and burdens and trials with others, we’ll probably experience a lot more
success – and we’ll find more joy in the journey as well…
So just remember… There’s not a simple formula for achieving
victory, but Frodo has shown us that perseverance and partnership will go a long way towards helping
you to get there.
Exodus 17:11-13: “As
long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he
lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took
a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands
up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till
sunset. So Joshua overcame
the Amalekite army with the sword.”
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