The Hobbit Who Wished It All Away

In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a quiet moment in the Mines of Moria that speaks to every soul who has ever questioned why they were placed in a difficult season. Frodo, weary and afraid, turns to Gandalf and says, "I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."

Gandalf's reply is one of the most pastoral lines ever written for film: "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."

That single exchange captures something the Apostle Paul understood deeply. He wrote to the Ephesians that we are "God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Purpose is not something we manufacture. It is something the Almighty has already woven into the fabric of our days.

Like Frodo, we may not have chosen our circumstances. We did not pick the family we were born into, the century we inhabit, or the particular burdens we carry. But the Most High did not place us here by accident. He placed us here on purpose, for a purpose.

You do not have to understand the whole journey. You simply have to decide what to do with the time that is given you.