In chapter ten, Bilbo looks out over the landscape as he floats downriver on the raft of barrels. Soon the trees of Mirkwood thin out and come to an end, the lands open wide, and across the marshes the Lonely Mountain suddenly comes into view. As the hobbit listens to the raftmen discuss the disagreements about who should be taking care of the Forest River and its banks, he learns something even Gandalf did not know. In recent years the area has changed much. Earthquakes, great floods, and heavy rains have caused the bogs and marshes to swell over their borders, bringing the elf-road to a “doubtful and little used end” on the edge of the forest. “So you see,” the narrator comments about the hobbit’s river trip, “Bilbo had come in the end by the only road that was any good.”

Because of the changes, we are told Bilbo is very fortunate to have even made it to see the mountain. Had he and the dwarves stuck to the elf-road as they had planned, they would have been stranded on the edge of the swampland where all paths vanished and “many a rider and wanderer too, if they tried to find the lost ways across.” Yes, all those long days of imprisonment among the elves were dreary. Yes, his position perched atop the barrels is cold and unpleasant. Still, Bilbo concludes he has been “more lucky than he had guessed.” As we have seen, Bilbo’s luck is really help from an unseen hand, so we could say that Bilbo has received more help than he had guessed. Admittedly it is strange help, the kind which may not seem like help until long afterwards.

In chapter five of Prince Caspian—one of The Chronicles of Narnia written by Tolkien’s friend C. S. Lewis—we find Narnia under the rule of the evil King Miraz and the young Caspian having to flee for his life. His tutor, Doctor Cornelius, gives Queen Susan’s magic horn to Caspian with these words: “It is said that whoever blows it shall have strange help—no one can say how strange.” When Caspian finally blows the horn, it does bring help, but not in the form anticipated. Caspian’s forces were expecting that perhaps High King Peter and his mighty consorts would arrive. Peter and his siblings do arrive, but in the form of children, not as mighty warriors. Strange help, indeed.

This strange help is, in fact, exactly the sort of assistance Bilbo has been receiving all throughout The Hobbit. The cheerless imprisonment among the elves and the wet, chilly night of barrel-riding certainly did not seem anything like help at the time. Yet now in looking back, he sees it has brought him to the only road that would have sufficed. And this is not the first time that Bilbo has been the recipient of this kind of blessing in disguise. Falling off Dori’s back during the escape from the goblins and being knocked unconscious certainly did not seem like help, yet without it he would never have found the ring. In a similar way, their encounter with the trolls did not seem like help, but without it Bilbo would not have had his sword Sting, which was in the trolls’ booty, to use against the spiders when he needed it.

Perhaps the strangest form of strange help in The Hobbit comes in the form of no help at all. While there are a number of times that Bilbo wishes Gandalf were around, as any teacher knows, one of the best ways to help pupils is to allow them to face and solve problems on their own. In fact, facing these kinds of trials is part of what makes them who they are. And Tolkien, who was not only a teacher but also a father, understood this concept. After Bilbo kills the spider in chapter eight, Tolkien has his narrator explain that: “Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins.”

Each of us has had something happen to us that we thought was the worst thing that could ever happen, but later we saw as the best thing that ever happened. Christians are well acquainted with these sort of blessings in disguise in our lives, assistance which looks like help only long afterwards. In fact, you might say that God specializes in this kind of strange help.