Once Upon a Time, Tolkien Felt Like a Failure

Give your failure some time, and it may become your truest success

One time J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a short story to help him through some frustration with his own body of work. The story, called Leaf by Niggle, was about an artist who got commissioned to paint a mural on the side of city hall. Niggle spent his whole career trying to complete that mural as he envisioned a robust, color-filled tree that would inspire for generations to come.

But after all was said and done, Niggle had eked out only one leaf.

And then he died.

On the train to heaven, Niggle saw a vague yet familiar image in the distance. Deeply curious, he asked the conductor to stop the train at once. The conductor obliged, and Niggle got off the train and approached the object only to discover that it was a tree—his tree—complete and lovelier than he had ever imagined. And right there in the middle of the tree was a leaf—his leaf—for the whole world to see. Niggle knew at once that the entire tree, including his single leaf, was a glorious gift.

Tolkien wrote Leaf by Niggle to work through frustration with another work he had spent years creating but knew would never be known by the outside world.

The name of that disappointing work was The Lord of the Rings.

If only Tolkien had known then what we know now about his “unsuccessful” project. And if only we knew now what we will one day know about our own work and how it fits into God’s project to rescue and heal the world.

In those moments when you too are tempted to stop pressing on, much less use belittling words about your work like “just”—“I’m just an accountant, just a full time parent, just a scrappy musician, just a landscaper, just a clerk, just a pastor...”—do yourself a favor and visit, and then revisit again and again, Tolkien’s Leaf by Niggle. Each time, remind yourself of the conditions under which he wrote it.

It is good to consider not only the past but also the future, where the significance of your life’s work, which may seem to you like only a leaf or two, will be revealed as an essential part of the Tree that God will place right in the middle of his City—the Tree of Life, no less—which will be given for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2).

It may be hard to believe that your work, done for God’s glory, has any real enduring significance. But it absolutely does. This excerpt from John Henry Newman’s Meditations, sent recently to me by a friend who has himself walked a mile or two in Niggle’s shoes, bears strong witness to this:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about…He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.”

Such anchoring truths can help us see that our work, whether or not we or anyone else recognizes it—fits in God’s overarching plan.

Scripture promises, “No eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). It also promises that the good work he has begun in us, every good work—whether it be the work of becoming more like Jesus or the work of eking out a leaf when we dream of a tree, will be made complete. The God who is Creator and Restorer and Architect and Builder of his great City will finish that work (Philippians 1:6). As he does, he will also look at us through the finished work of Jesus and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

The work you do now will go on into eternity. It is a link on the Creator’s chain and a leaf on the Creator’s tree with roots deep down in the Creator’s eternal garden and there, nothing will be wasted.

That includes the compost.

What could be more significant, enduring, and hopeful than this?