Frozen 2 and Following Christ

I realize that I’m dating this post in saying this, but Frozen 2 was just released and it was a huge hit just like the first one. I see it everywhere: in Walmart, on Youtube, even playing on my airline flight returning from overseas. I can’t seem to escape this movie, and with it, the infectious soundtrack. I’ve seen the movie now, and although I wasn’t impressed, the main song from it has stuck with me.

Unlike the original Frozen movie with it’s leading number being the song “Let it Go”, (which for anyone who has heard me talk about it is a song I utterly despise as being one of the most selfish, arrogant, and thoughtless songs of our time) the song from Frozen 2, “Into the Unknown”, was something different.  

I was asked by someone close to me why I didn’t hate it just as much or even more than Let it Go? After all, the main character is hearing voices in her head which are often attributed with witchcraft or demonic influences. I put it on hold and decided to listen to it again after some time, and reevaluate it’s content and message. 

That time has come.

If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil it, but the main character, Queen Elsa, is hearing a small voice that seems to be calling her. After a few days of hearing this voice, it calls again during the night, waking Elsa from an otherwise peaceful night’s sleep. Thus begins the song, “Into the Unknown” by Idina Menzel. If you haven’t heard it yet, go do that now so that I don’t have to post the full lyrics here, as I will be referring to it for the remainder of this post. As I listened to this song the words hit me different as I started to think of them in relation to the Christian life,with the small voice being the Holy Spirit:

I can hear you but I won't

Some look for trouble while others don't

There's a thousand reasons I should go about my day, and ignore your whispers

So many times in our Christian walk we hear the voice of God, but right now is just a really bad time. Being sold out for God, and doing the really daring stuff is for the religious zealots like pastors, missionaries, and people in public ministry, not for people like me. Those people may be “looking for trouble”, but I’m not. I like the constancy of my hometown, my family, my job, my friends, my comfort zones, my hobbies and leisure, and my other thousand reasons for ignoring the call of Christ on our lives.

The word “Christian” literally means “Follower of Christ”. Do you remember where Christ went? That’s right, to the cross. He laid aside everything that would be looked on as important in this world to fulfill the most important mission from His Father (Phil. 2:7-8). He gave up His seat in Heaven at the right hand of God (Acts 7:58); He gave up His authority  to submit to God the Father (Luke 22:42), His earthly parents (Luke 2:51), and the earthly government of the time (Matt. 17:24-27); He took on no earthly possessions (Luke 9:58); and He suffered a gruesome and shameful death. And Jesus says “If any man will [say he follows me], let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matt. 16:24)

I've had my adventure, I don't need something new

Following Jesus must be also a way of life, not just a couple of great times long ago. We cannot just set up camp on the many great things that God has done for, in, or through us in the past. Jesus wants to continue working in our lives, bringing us through new and more difficult trials because He’s sadistic…. NO! Because His ultimate goal is to make us more like Jesus, and that requires stripping away the layers of the old man. If you’ve ever restored a piece of furniture you know how many pain-staking hours of stripping paint, sanding, replacing hardware, and putting on a fresh coat (or 3 fresh coats) of paint or stain is necessary before you have a beautiful piece again. But if you stopped at any one of those steps, that piece of furniture would never reach its full potential, and may be even uglier than when you started.

It is the same with us. Maybe the next chapter God has for you means that you need to be scrubbed down with some 80 grit sandpaper, or maybe He’s just put on the first coat of paint, but either way it is a continual process that, in the end, will be worth it all.    

I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you

To follow Christ means to surrender everything to Him. And quite honestly, He may take it all away. He is good, and He longs to give us good things (Matt. 7:11), and  there are many things that we enjoy in life that are gifts from Him to demonstrate His love for us. However, in the pursuit of Jesus there will be things in your life that must be stripped away so that Christ may replace those things with more of Himself. This is a painful process, and I would be doing you a disservice by trying to sugarcoat or otherwise diminish that. The Christian life is not for the faint of heart, and Jesus never begged or pleaded with anyone to take part in it, but it is by far the most fulfilling life on earth, and the only life worth anything on the other side.

Are you someone out there… who knows... I'm not where I'm meant to be?

The resolve or the desire to go where Christ leads, and to do as He commands is found only in Christ Himself. Before we can stop focusing on the insurmountable tasks Christ is calling us to, we must first remember who Christ is and what He has promised us. He knows us; He knows our limitations; but yet He also offers us His strength that knows no bounds. He offers to carry the burden of His calling (Matt. 11:29-30), shelter us from burn-out (Isa. 40:31), and danger (Psa. 9:9).

Remember who Jesus is! Jesus knows what it’s like to answer God’s call even when it’s end is death. Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer, to be ridiculed and humiliated, and finally to even be killed for the Kingdom of God. A most beautiful scene passed down to us in Scripture is when Jesus is praying to His Father in the Garden only hours before going to the cross. He isn’t there with His disciples pumping weights and trying to get hyped up, anxious to meet his demise. Instead, He prays that if there is any other way to accomplish God’s will, He wants to go with that (Matt. 26:39). How many times have we prayed for God to show us some other way? A way more pleasant, or closer to home, or more within our comfort zone.

Jesus knows what that’s like.

Every day's a little harder as I feel your power grow

Hallelujah! The first couple of times I heard this song I thought it was talking about Elsa’s power and her difficulty to listen to the voice; but it isn’t. The voice’s power is growing, and making it harder for her to ignore it. Pray for this in your life! Pray that the Holy Spirit of God would not let you alone, but would be so incessant in your heart that you cannot ignore Him. It is a most dangerous thing when we cease to hear the voice of God because of our dismissal of Him (Rom. 1:21-32 talks of this). Pray that God would sick the “Hounds of Heaven” after your soul, and that your mind could not rest until you surrender to His call.

Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go… Into the unknown

And then… surrender. Hear, Listen, Obey.The most beautiful part of Jesus’ prayer in the garden is when He says “nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done.” If we truly believe that God knows best, cannot make a mistake, loves us, is compassionate, is just, and will ultimately be victorious no matter what, we would be utter fools not to follow Him; but I don’t think we are. I think oftentimes we don’t follow Him because there is one of those statements that we are not believing, and so we cling to what we find more comforting or secure.

My dear siblings, leaving your comfort zone, risking it all, pursuing new adventures with Christ, and continually listening to Him for the next thing is absolutely worth it. It will not always make sense; there will be times of pain or suffering; it will be hard… but few things worth doing are ever easy. 

In light of eternity, there is no mountain too high, nor sea too broad; no mud too deep, no path too difficult; no fire too hot, no night too dark to make any call of God no longer worth it. The end of all of God’s missions is God Himself, and there is no more wonderful prize.

So are you willing? Will you risk it all and follow Jesus… into the unknown?




- Luke Schwartz