Does it ever seem to you that much of life is hurried preparation for some yet unseen event? And that when your preparation feels complete – I’s dotted, T’s crossed – the prepared-for thing tarries?

Do you live for days on end in that place called “Hurry up and wait?”

There’s a moment in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Return of the King that has haunted me since I saw the film weeks ago. Haunted me so persistently that I pulled my copy of the third book of the trilogy from the shelf, and searched for it again.

The Hobbit Pippin stands on the high ramparts of Minas Tirith, watching the darkening horizon. Something is coming. He feels it. Preparations for battle are being made all around him. Frodo and Sam are making their fearful way to Mordor. The fellowship of the ring has been scattered. Evil forces are forming and the signal fires have been lit. The whereabouts of Aragorn, the rightful king, are uncertain.

Pippin wonders aloud if Aragorn will come soon. “Maybe, Maybe,” says Gandalf. “Though if he comes it is likely to be in a way that no one expects. It will be better so.”

“It is,” he says, looking off to the distance as far as he can see, “the deep breath before the plunge.”

I can’t know what you’re waiting for. And I won’t share my list here. But whatever drama is playing on the stage of your life or mine, it is only a subplot to the larger story. The only story that will matter in the end.

There is a rightful King. He is coming. And He will arrive in time.

Young Pippin swears his loyalty to the king he stands before – Denethor. But the king of Gondor is only a foot soldier to the true Lord of the Realm.

Still, it is right to feel your heart compelled in the presence of a king – so in this time of hurry up and wait, this deep breath before the plunge – I pledge that same loyalty to my King, the Living One:

Hear do I swear fealty and service to the Lord and Steward of the Realm, to speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need or in plenty, in peace or in war, in living or dying, from this hour forward, until my Lord release me (He will not), or death take me (as it surely will) or the world end (which will be for me but a new beginning).

Breathe deeply, friends. All of life is but a pause before the King who is surely coming. And it will be better so.

“Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Even so, Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1: 7-8, NASB)

© Leigh McLeroy 2004