Gandalf scratches a queer sign” on Bilbo’s freshly painted door. After a bustling invasion of hooded dwarves, Bilbo is upset by “a hard rat-tat on the hobbit’s beautiful green door. Somebody was banging with a stick.” Gandalf, we are told, had left “quite a dent on the beautiful door.”
We too can become entangled in pettiness like Bilbo. It is easy to become more concerned with the door than the adventures that wait beyond it. But often God knows us better than we know ourselves and marks our door for adventure.
