Beyond Gollum

One of the most powerful portrayals of this attempting to redeem ourselves is Gollum's character from Lord of the Rings.

Smeagol kills his friend to get the ring ("It's my birthday, precious, give it to me.") He is driven from his home by the people in the town and is forced to survive in the wild. Smeagol is weak. Gollum becomes this larger life, the super-ego, that attempts to redeem and save Smeagol. In the wonderfully powerful scene in the movie where Gollum and Smeagol are talking back and forth to themselves, Gollum asks Smeagol, "Who saved us? It was me! Gollum!"

And so it is with us. In our weakness we attach ourselves to something (med school, the lethargic life, the party life, relationships, our culture or sub-culture, our sexuality or the American dream) and our souls wrap our hopes around that thing. We become like Gollum, taken by what is not a redeemer, wrapped up in what cannot give us life.

There's a principle in Scripture most vividly described by the Psalmist: we become like what we worship. If we will not worship the only Personalizing Person God, we will find something else to worship. In the end, that is who we are. In the end, our lives will stand or fall, will last or will go the way of the shadow, based on where we spent our worship.