Keith Seabourn

I watched Lord of the Rings #2: The Two Towers this afternoon. I had forgotten this amazing conversation.

This is an epic moment in the story. Frodo is ready to give up. His optimistic, good friend Sam steps in and encourages him.

Frodo: I can’t do this thing.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are.

Sam: It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really matter. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you don’t want to know the end … because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was with so much bad happening?

Sam: But in the end, it’s only a passing thing. This shadow, even darkness will pass. But the day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.

Sam: Those are the stories that stay with you. That man suffered. Even if he were too small to understand why.

Sam: I think Mr. Frodo that I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back. Only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

I revisited my thoughts from this morning on how the middle can be messy. It’s our confidence in God who superintends everything that empowers us to move forward through messiness.

Each day, we have a chance to be a story that stays with you. One of the ones that really matter.

I read a thought-provoking article this morning. Andrée Seu writes for World Magazine. She wrote about how it’s often messy in the middle, but the end of the story can change everything.

Some thoughts I’m still chewing on:

• “This is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)
• Satan wants you to believe the middle will last forever.
• Job, stuck in a brutal middle, cried, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (19:25). And that is the key to everything, to surviving brutal middles.

One of the pithiest sentences in the Bible continually provokes me:
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” [1 Thessalonians 5:16-18]

Yes, it’s sometimes messy in the middle of difficult circumstances. But the most powerful way to cry “I know that my Redeemer lives” is to give thanks, in the messies, in the middle.

In purchasing my airline ticket to travel to Egypt, I tried to route myself through Rome on Alitalia. I fly Delta and its Skyteam partners. The Delta website routinely routes flights through Paris and their Air France partner.

I wanted to fly Alitalia, who is also a Skyteam partner. But I couldn’t get the Delta website to book a flight through Rome.

Now I know why God didn’t let me book this trip on Alitalia. From the paper here in Paris today:

Thousands of travelers were left stranded on Tuesday because of a strike by Italian air traffic controllers and Alitalia flight attendants that forced the cancellation of hundreds of domestic and international flights.

The Italian national carrier, Alitalia, alone canceled 394 flights Tuesday because of the 10 am – 6 pm strike.

Other international carriers also canceled flights because of the walkout by air traffic controllers.

God used the Delta website to prevent me from booking a ticket on the route I thought I wanted to take.

When God speaks, we are wise to listen.