In Expectation of our Journey

In four days, I will get to meet our team in person for the first time. I am beyond excited to see them and get to know them fully while we are at training camp. As I prepare to leave home, a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings has been on my mind for the past few days.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

— Bilbo Baggins From J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring

From just the conversations we have had over the phone, I know our team is amazing. I can’t wait to see what the Lord will do through us while we are gone.

I can’t wait for the journey that awaits me, but I am a little scared about where the road might take me. I will be separated from my family and my siblings longer than I ever have before. I will be overseas, living out of nothing but a backpack. My faith will be challenged. I will face spiritual warfare. The list goes on and on. Bilbo was right: journeys are dangerous.

I pray that the Lord will strengthen our team over the next week against the spiritual warfare that is being waged against us as we prepare to leave. I pray that he will prepare us to be vulnerable and honest with each other as we fly out to Georgia to begin this journey. I pray that he would be the reason I go on this trip rather than my selfish desires. I pray that our team will be overcome with the spirit of Romans 12 and will be shining lights of God’s grace everywhere we go.

In another one of Tolkien’s books, The Hobbit, which is set before the events of the Lord of the Rings, Bilbo is caught up in a journey he wanted no part of. He was volunteered (against his wishes) to travel halfway across the world to steal dragon’s gold, a task he had no desire to do. Surprisingly, Bilbo goes on this trip anyway. After his grand adventure, Bilbo returns as a rich man, but not in obvious ways. Yes, he returned with a chest of gold, but he gained something more valuable: experiences. Before he left, Bilbo was a reclusive hobbit, living in his hole in the ground, never to leave home for any reason, but upon his return, he was different. Bilbo was a changed man. This led him to tell his nephew, Frodo, those wise words quoted above.

Leaving home in a few days is a dangerous endeavor for our entire team. What we will learn, experience, and do together could change us in many ways, either for the worse or, as I pray, for the better.

Lord, prepare us for this Journey ahead.

“The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.”

-Bilbo Baggins From J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring