The Isolated Kingdom

“I don’t care what people think. I’m going to do whatever I want to do.” It’s a common mentality in our culture.

Let It Go from Disney’s Frozen expresses the mentality perfectly. You know the song: “I don’t care what they’re going to say. Let the storm rage on; the cold never bothered me anyway.” The popular children’s song also includes “wholesome” lyrics like “No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free!”

The thing is, Queen Elsa, who sings this song, doesn’t realize that she’s hurt a lot of people with her so-called “freedom.” When she unleashes her power to turn everything she into ice, she freely creates a beautiful palace, but she also puts her entire kingdom in “deep, deep, deep, deep snow” (to use her sister’s words). When she finds out what she’s done, Elsa is quick to change her tune: “Oh, I’m such a fool, I can’t be free…no escape from the storm inside of me!”

It’s an accurate picture of what goes on inside of us: we get tired of restraining our sin, so we decide to “let it go,” not caring what “they’re going to say.” But we find out the sin we don’t control ends up controlling us.

Like Elsa, if we want to grow in our gifts and personalities without letting our extremes overtake us, we need loving sisters (and brothers) in Christ.

Last week, I wrote about not regarding man’s opinion, but this week I want to temper that with a biblical caution. The people-pleasing that threatens to consume us is only a distortion of our God-given need for accountability and loving community. Let’s not throw out one with the other.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:23-25, ESV).

As we see more and more signs of the end times – including massive back-to-back hurricanes – it becomes all the more important that we do life in Christian community. We need to reach out and help those who are suffering. But we also need to enter into committed, accountable relationship with other Christians. Most of us will do this through local church membership and participation in small groups focused on our spiritual growth.

If we don’t, we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves in Queen Elsa’s “kingdom of isolation,” where “the wind is howling like this swirling storm inside” and our “soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to keep my soul thawed and intact.