I just watched the Hobbit again to refresh my experience of the first installment's story of the Peter Jackson series before I watch the Desolation of Smaug in the theatres, which I plan to do soon.
My soul was touched. I felt it being stirred in the parts of the film where Bilbo made some unexpected discoveries about himself. He acted on things he wasn't even aware of existing inside of himself. The first case of this, was when he was challenged to go on the dangerous adventure with Gandalf and the 12 Dwarves to help Thorin and his fellow dwarves reclaim their old Dwarven kingdom. At first, he was just too comfortable in his own hobbit home to set foot outside of it. Then, the next morning, when the rest of the crew were heading off, he realized that he needed, or wanted to go. He not only surprised the Dwarves. He surprised himself that he would voluntarily put himself in danger in pursuit of a noble cause. Deciding to do so would put his life in jeopardy and sacrifice any comforts he enjoyed previously.
The second example that caught my attention was when Thorin was about to be beheaded by an orc soldier, only to be body checked and then gutted by a presumptuously brave and screaming Bilbo out of nowhere. Out of all the others who would come to the rescue at the risk of their own lives, who would have expected him? But he stepped in and put his life on the line to save another. He had no training in how to fight. Yet he still had to do something, and acted on it. The official movie synopsis puts it best: "the unassuming Bilbo Baggins... discovers depths of... courage that surprise even him". When Thorin expressed his gratitude to Bilbo for saving his life later on, he said to him "I'm sorry I doubted you". The humble Bilbo then humbly responded, "I doubted myself".
My eyes watered. It's films like these that touch my soul, because they capture and express what I myself have experienced on my own journey multiple times.
This idea, that one has something valuable hidden inside of themselves that others, including themselves, aren't aware of only to be discovered when unexpected challenges arise, touches my soul very deeply. Whether it is courage to accept an overwhelming challenge for a good cause, finding something within you (that surprises yourself) that wants to be radical for the cause of Christ in some concrete calling, or simply being enabled to do something by grace what one previously thought was impossible, these moments seem sublime to me.
This relates to another thing I`ve been learning about in the spiritual journey. It has to do with how God`s supernatural grace and human free will concretely work together to produce extra human effects in accomplishing God`s will and advancing the story that God writes.
I used to try to understand how divine grace and human free will practically work together in a very mechanistic/quantifiable way. After going through frustrations in coming up with a coherent framework where the two can harmoniously coexist, I then tried to leave it all up to mystery without overanalyzing it.
Now, however, I think I have come up with a partial understanding of how the two work together. It has helped me understand previously puzzling verses such as "... continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:12b-13).
It is indeed God who supernaturally transforms us. We have absolutely no power on our own to live a supernatural life in words (Acts 2:37), actions (Colossians 1:29), and power (1 Thessalonians 1:45). That comes from God. However, such a supernatural lifestyle comes from "abiding" (John 15:4-7) in God. In more colloquial terms, I believe this means to connect with God relationally. This is more than just praying things to God in a one-way flow of communication. As David Benner said, prayer is much more than just praying. It is a way of being in experiential communion with God. And a lot of it is nonverbal. I think the majority of it is without words actually (at least in the stage where God has led me to currently). And this takes a huge sacrifice of time to abide deeply in God. It takes a lot of hours each week. I'm not talking about reading the Bible mentally where one tricks oneself into thinking that one is "interacting with God" when in reality one is just interacting with ideas about God with one's mind. I'm talking about relationally communing with God whether or not words are involved for the sake of "chilling" with him. And that takes a lot of sacrifice of time. It involves sacrificing extra time from email/facebook/entertainment/socializing if it steals away time from relationally connecting with God without any other agenda other than just knowing him as a real friend (John 17:3).
Perhaps what this is what Paul meant, at least partially, when he used strenuous athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 saying:
"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize".
I think what Paul was getting at here was not to try to produce supernatural results strenuously in his ministry, character formation, and relational experiences with God with an attitude of struggling to make things happen. On the contrary, I think he was getting at the rigorousness that is required in sacrificing time to spend with God relationally. This is something that is up to man's free will. God can woo us to sacrifice time from hobbies/entertainment/socializing to connect with him in long periods and hours, but at the end of the day, he cannot make this decision for us. We have to make it ourselves. But once we make the human decision to spend an ample amount of time abiding in him, that's when the Holy Spirit comes in to do his divine work that creates supernatural effects in us, including extra-human effects in ministry, extra-human effects in character formation, and extra-human effects in one's relational experiences with God.
Like Bilbo, we have to do our part and make sacrifices to respond to the call. But once we have done that, we are open to unexpected discoveries of what God has planted inside of us every chapter in the journey.
