One of my favorite characters in Lord of the Rings is Theoden.
He is a fallen king that rises to become a hero once more. But there is one scene that really puzzled me.
The seige of Gondor had begun, and Theoden is taking his Rohirrim to help. He has told his men that there is no hope, that they cannot face the hordes of Sauron and win, and that death awaits them. He no longer clings to life, and freely is willing to sacrifice his life in the battle.
So far, so good; but when the Rohirrim finally reach Gondor, when Theoden reaches that last hill's crest, and he sees the enemy that awaits him, he pauses. He seems to be dismayed, like his courage has left Him (if you read the Tolkien's description of the scene in the 'Return of the King', it is even stronger. The actor does a GREAT job at portraying the feelings in the book).
That bothered me greatly. Why would he lose heart at the end? He already knew that he would face insurmountable odds. He already knew that death awaited him. So why, at the end, did dread grip him so? What could have made him so afraid?
I suppose one answer is that he really didn't expect to die, that all his talk of hopelessness was a charade, but that answer didn't seem likely. Then it hit me....
He had abandoned all hope but one: the hope that his death would do some good. He felt that if death would take him, and those that he led, they would at least have died for some purpose. At least they would be saving Gondor.
But as he crossed that last peak, the hopeless lost more hope. He despaired even of saving those that he was willing to die for. He thought he had known hopelessness, but he hadn't tasted utter loss yet. Now, as the armies of Sauron, and the destruction of Gondor, lay before him, he was stripped of even that last hope. Now, all was truly lost.
God gives us so much, but in the end, we must give all to Him. Many times, the last thing to go is this hope of making a difference. Don't get me wrong, a Christian that is willing to give all to Christ WILL make a difference, a HUGE difference. They can't help but to be an influence to those souls that they touch.
But God want us to give all. He wants us to do right because of who He is, and who we are, and what He has done for us. We must give up all to Christ, even our hope for success. For then, and only then, can God truly use us to our fullest. When we have given over EVERYTHING to God, He will give us everything in return, and God's everything is much more than ours.
When things are at there bleakest, we should obey God, even when we see no hope in doing so, even when failure seems to be the only possible outcome, simply because we love Him; and, more importantly, He loves us.
This total abandon allows us to truly, deeply, and consistently love others. Because we are loving them for who they are, and what we see that they can be, not for the change we think that they should make. Although change they may well need. We love them because God loves them, and He wants so badly for them to see what He knows they can truly become. For what He knows they can truly become....
....is remarkable.
I have been blessed by God to be involved in the lives of so many great Christians. I have seen so many grow, and win victories beyond their years. But, in the end, I must do what is right, even when victories seem scarce, and utter ruin seems inevitable. I certainly don't feel that way now, but I hope I will be strong enough to always serve God, even if that day comes.
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