Anilujah

Biblical Courage against Fear: A Frozen Perspective

October 20, 2023 Josh and Rebecca Season 3 Episode 98
Anilujah
Biblical Courage against Fear: A Frozen Perspective
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Ready to cast out fear with love? We use the beloved movie Frozen as a springboard to explore the themes of fear, love, and faith. We dissect Elsa's fear of her own powers and her self-imposed isolation, drawing parallels to our own lives and our awe, respect, and sometimes fear of the divine. We grapple with the scriptures that say "fear not" versus those that dictate "fear the Lord", finding a connection within Elsa's story. 

We dive into  the nature of our relationship with God. How often does it become routine rather than heartfelt? Are we listening for His guidance amidst our fear and uncertainty? Through an analysis of Elsa and Anna's relationship, we perceive a reflection of our bond with God — one that requires constant effort to keep alive despite the shadow of fear. 

We also turn to some biblical stories, highlighting instances where fear was overcome by faith and courage. From Moses to Jesus, we delve into how these figures handled fear and love's role in our relationship with God. 

So join us, as we navigate the intricate intersection of fear, love, and faith in our everyday lives.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Analuia podcast, bringing you redemptive analogies each week, everything from Disney to Naruto. We're here to present the Gospel in a more animated way. Get ready to raise a hallelujah, this time for Analuia.

Speaker 2:

And you're locked into another episode of the Analuia podcast. My name is Josh and we are glad to be back with you this week, as we are every week. In case you aren't aware, we do a video component each week with our podcast. This is usually the full, unedited conversation and you'll also have the pleasure of looking at our wonderful faces. So if you aren't already subscribed, go ahead and subscribe. Give us a like. It really helps us with the YouTube algorithm and that is youtubecom forward slash at Analuia podcast. And it is sweater weather. It is getting colder, just not here in Tennessee where we live, but just all around, and I just like being warm and cozy, and my wife does as well. So, without further ado, my little wife, rebecca.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey y'all.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you got the southern twang going on.

Speaker 1:

Thought I'd pull it out.

Speaker 2:

Oh great, but this really all started like from me getting into the sweater weather and cozy mood. It was only one to the pumpkin patch this weekend. It was not the best times, it was not the worst times, it was the mint the times, because it was not only was it cold, though it was raining, which made it even colder, but it was fun. It's set. They did not have hot apple cider, they had apple cider slushy.

Speaker 1:

Just weird. Yeah, why would they not have hot cider they? Ooh, I'm sorry there was a bug. It's flying around, okay, sorry.

Speaker 2:

And now it's over here. But they had hot chocolate, oh coffee. Yeah, and coffee Hot chocolate coffee. Well, it was better than nothing. It's not cider, but you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean overall it was fun. It was much more for, like, younger kids.

Speaker 2:

Right, we did go with kids, by the way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

We weren't it wasn't just you know, we had our nephews there with us and their families, but it was, it was all right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would say it would be a lot more fun to go with the kids when they are.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Like toddler age that four-thousand six-year-old.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, perfect time yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then they can take part in everything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty cool. It's a pretty cool little place. They're open, I think, from Easter to Thanksgiving or something.

Speaker 2:

I think you're right, or at least we. At least we end of October, at least.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so they had a bunch of like animals there, because it was a farm so you could pet the sheep and the goats and the. They had these huge rabbits, I mean. Yeah, the ginormous, the enormous rabbits those were. They look so fluffy they wanted to pet them, but that was not not going to happen.

Speaker 2:

This is not not the deal for that day.

Speaker 1:

Not meant to be no.

Speaker 2:

Well, with it getting colder, we thought it was appropriate to discuss the movie We'll be doing this week and that is frozen. Now the first one.

Speaker 1:

We've already done the second one.

Speaker 2:

Before that says anything. We've had a habit of doing the sequel first, but again we told you we would bring back another one. Bring it back. Well, we're actually just talking about it. We're bringing back the series. I've watched Frozen At least a dozen times and we thought about well, we could go through memory and try to do our best with that. But in our history of doing the podcast it doesn't always vote well when we try to do it from memory. So we had to kind of have an idea of what we're going to talk about. I'm going to say just pulling things out of thin air.

Speaker 1:

I mean we could have done. We could have done a good job, but it was better to go ahead and rewatch.

Speaker 2:

We're actually just finished watching it. Yes, so it's very fresh.

Speaker 2:

But the main theme for this episode in relation to Frozen is fear and how fear just is a consuming thing, especially what's going on right now. I won't get into that, just because things are changing every day and the situation could change the time of wake up tomorrow or when you're listening to the podcast, but we're not given a sphere of fear. I always used to have this contradiction in my mind. It's like well, god doesn't give us a sphere of fear, but in scripture it says fear the Lord. I mean in plain English, fear means the same thing, at least in my mind, as a negative, but I've heard that fear and trendling before the Lord is more a connotation of being in awe. Have you ever heard that, theka?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in my life I kind of grew up understanding the fear of the Lord to be, yeah, like you said, of respect, respect for who he is, a fear of like, also kind of like you know, truly fear of this is God and he created literally everything which means that he could take it away at any.

Speaker 2:

Moment.

Speaker 1:

And I mean that's a little bit of fear and a fear of like you know when we're, when our time on this earth is done and we come before the great white throne of judgment. We will be judged for our actions and inactions.

Speaker 2:

Oh yes.

Speaker 1:

And I think we kind of forget to talk about that in a lot of churches.

Speaker 2:

We do yeah.

Speaker 1:

Today.

Speaker 2:

Well, because I think we don't. They don't talk about it. So, oh, you don't have to worry about that. You go through for the white, the great white throne judgment, not the let's see other like the, like the Vima seat or something like that, or is that the same?

Speaker 1:

thing I do not remember, but there are two different judgments. Yes, I know what you're talking about there. Yeah, there's two, two different judgment. One is for unbelievers, one is for believers.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

One judges. You know, did you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Nope, Well, unfortunately, you have chosen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and for those of you who don't believe this, you know that we come at our episodes from the biblical, christian perspective. Again, this is, this is just our views and how we interpret the scripture, but this is pretty fundamental to what we believe. Now there is other things in doctrine that are available, but this, this is fundamental, not wavering on this.

Speaker 1:

Right yeah, one of those like non-doctrinal things is like the rapture.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

The rapture is not specifically said in the Bible.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, there's well, there is like Carthazzo, and there's a ton of other teachers. We are in no means well-versed in that. It's just in the hands of our time on.

Speaker 1:

So fear is our main point.

Speaker 2:

Right and give you a quick synopsis of frozen it is. It's actually 10 years old as of this year.

Speaker 1:

I thought it came out in 2012, 2013.

Speaker 2:

I'm pretty sure 13.

Speaker 1:

Was it like November?

Speaker 2:

November, yeah, yeah. So this, this November, turned 10 years old and it's crazy like that. It doesn't, does not feel like the movie came out that long ago. Okay, how would you, how would you explain it?

Speaker 1:

I would explain frozen, as there's these two princesses, who are princesses of the land called Arundel. One of them is born with ice magic and the other one is a very happy, go lucky, fun, loving little girl. They are playing one day in the ballroom making snowmen, accident happens and which means that the Elsa is the sister with magic and she has to keep well, she thinks anyway she has to keep her magic secret and so she completely pulls away from Anna and they become estranged after losing their parents and several years later she becomes queen. On coronation day, anna, the happy go looking, happy, go lucky person, falls in love with this prince of the southern Isles, hans, and they decide they want to get married. Anna finally gets upset with Elsa. Elsa gets upset with her, her magic releases. She's been living with this fear of her magic getting out and hurting someone else like her little sister, and she runs away and accidentally causes eternal winter for the whole town. Anna goes to save her and there's your synopsis you know, maybe you should do those from now on.

Speaker 2:

I like that better. But yeah, in a nutshell, there you have the whole story. Now the fear in kind of it comes from what they just described a little bit where also pulls away from Anna. She's very secluded in her room and that's because, again that parenting here her father says you know what, was it Sealed, don't feel.

Speaker 1:

Don't let it show which again. Tara, none of this, One wrong move and everyone will know. Yeah, but it's only for today.

Speaker 2:

Not the best advice because she's just keeping all that fear inside, all the hurt inside and we could relate to, like you know, mental health honestly you look fine on the outside but your heart, brain, all that pain, all that anxiety in the inside.

Speaker 1:

Well, when you and when you keep it all on the inside, you know it turns into something something completely different. Honestly it's since you mentioned mental health it's I mean, for her it's more of like a phobia rather than, like you know, I was thinking of even maybe OCD traits, because she's terrified of letting her magic get out and get out and hurting people. So she thinks that if she is around people too long then she will hurt them. Therefore she needs to stay locked away. And those are some of the like intrusive thoughts that people who suffer from OCD deal with. And it's a lot. It's debilitating. Fear and anxiety is debilitating. I mean you could almost say she's got like panic attacks. That happen.

Speaker 2:

Right, right.

Speaker 1:

And this is no joke. This is what happens when you try to stuff down all of your emotions, to conceal everything and don't feel you're a robot. And that's just not how life works.

Speaker 2:

You can't be a robot.

Speaker 1:

That's not. Yeah, that's not what, but we're built to do.

Speaker 2:

We ride like we're not meant to carry a loan, and Elsa is carrying that burn loan. She's wearing the gloves and to go with OCD, as long she wears the gloves and that she stays inside and she doesn't hurt anyone. She doesn't want her parents, she doesn't want her sister, she doesn't want to hurt the people of the air and Dale. It's not a good situation all around. Until Coronation Day, though, we're honest hopes and dreams of just seeing people.

Speaker 1:

Poor thing, she just wants to go outside. She's like in her little in the I want to build a snowman song. She's like I've started talking to the pictures on the wall hang in there and Joan, and. But yeah, like poor girl, she just needs some company.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I can kind of liken this to when you have your first boyfriend, your first girlfriend, or you've been out of the dating game a while and you're trying to get back out there and your standards are very low. You take almost anybody, you know Prince Hans, you shut the door and everything, but honestly, it just lays it all out there Like she's fully in too eager and she's going 100 miles for her blood train. That's not them.

Speaker 1:

I get it. I was like her at one point, you know, got to live some life before I really realize that's probably not the best way to go.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, and she definitely hasn't had a lot of life being stuck in inside that palace all day.

Speaker 2:

Just wants to eat her chocolate and be the picture of sophisticated grace. But another thing I thought about with this movie is the overall focus of the light love we have on this version of love which is just I love everybody. I love you, hans, let's get married. And we kind of find out later in the film that love can be demonstrated in many different ways. And like you had, you had a, you had a family, if you want to go into it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I love the way that you set that up, Josh, because it's true, everybody has a different version of love, but there's only one type of love that saves.

Speaker 2:

And love cast out all fear.

Speaker 1:

You see how what I did there, yes yes, that is, and that is the answer, right it that the movie tells us is. So you know, we've got Anna, who reached out to Elsa to say hey, you know, I mean she's singing the reprise of love is an open door.

Speaker 2:

No, no, the reprise for the first time in forever.

Speaker 1:

First time in forever. I knew that Anyway. So she's like for the first time in forever, I finally understand you on. Elsa Like please come on, just let me in. I just want to love you and help you. And Elsa just can't. She can't take it. She has been lied to kept in a cage for her entire life. And so she ends up not on purpose, but she ends up getting her in the heart, putting that ice in her heart.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And I thought it was really interesting, this idea of you know ice in the head right, because that's why the action starts is on.

Speaker 2:

As a child, it gets in the head by the her ice towers.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, and then poppy pop the troll. The is the name Poppy.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not Poppy, it's a grand Poppy. The grand troll.

Speaker 1:

His name is grand Poppy. Anyway, the old troll, he, he says you know the the head can be easily persuaded into thinking something different.

Speaker 1:

and you know that's easy to change and manipulate, but when you get struck in the heart, that is much more difficult to change and it takes an act of true love to change the heart. And there's lots of different parallels that we can talk about here, you know. One of them is is the love of God is the only thing that can, you know, melt our heart of stone, or heart of ice, if you will, to make it a heart of flesh, and it's only his love that can do that, and then it's an act of true love. So, sacrifice of true love. You know what Jesus did for us. He sacrificed his life on the cross so that we could have a relationship with God and build that bridge again with him. And so there's lots of different little parallels here that we can pull out of that one particular heart of ice, a frozen heart, if you will.

Speaker 2:

And we certainly see that sacrificial love when Anna sacrifices her. So for Elsa, when she's about to be killed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know there's. You know when we're in trouble and when we you know we've been hurt. So so say, instead of you know it being a heart of stone or whatever, I guess the the when Elsa hurt Anna, you could even say emotionally hurt her it finally struck her, I guess, and that really really was an injury on the inside. And when we have an injury like that, a lot of times we we try to say something happened to us, our best friend trade us or hurt us in some way, or your husband or wife cheats on you or your child dies, or I mean like serious stuff here and more trivial as well. You know that kind of a thing. A lot of times we we turn to things that we think will love us back right. We turn to shopping or we turn to, you know, classic drugs, alcohol, sex, all kinds of things that we think will make us feel better. And it does make us feel better for a little bit, but it's not truly the answer.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

So Anna gets struck in the heart with this ice and she thinks oh, true love, true loves, kiss, and I need to go see Hans. So they rush back to Hans all the while Christoph is there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, without Christoph, you're gonna do like that.

Speaker 1:

Right, you just spend all this time, even though they, they, I guess they technically only knew each other for a day too. So yeah, but it's messaging, right.

Speaker 2:

And when they go back there and you know, anna's like oh, you know, I need you to kiss me and say Well, what you know, elsa, you know, struck my heart and it can only be cured by true love's kiss. So then we have this that ensues. I'm going to go and put a kiss and send me a great bite. Oh, anna, if only there was someone out there who loved you. Oh, that's yeah it hurts.

Speaker 2:

You said you did as 13th in line in my own kingdom. I didn't stand a chance. I knew I'd have to marry into the throne somewhere. What are you talking about? As air Elsa was preferable, of course, but no one was getting anywhere with her. But you, you were so desperate for love.

Speaker 1:

You were willing to marry me just like that.

Speaker 2:

I figured after we married I'd have to stage a little accident for Elsa. No, no, no, stop. Then she doomed herself he was a bad man, he's very bad, I know.

Speaker 1:

Once you figure that out you're like oh, that colors everything that he said in a whole different light.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, even the song Mother's an Open Door. Oh yeah, there is that one line. It's like. It's like, yeah, and I've been searching my whole life to find my own place, and that visual of like, yeah, this is going to be that place and exactly exactly.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to steal it from you and your sister naive.

Speaker 2:

The I was when I first saw that in the movie theater. I was not expecting. No, I was, and they played it really well because we see Hans as the heroic as he well he's really into perfect picture of a prince.

Speaker 1:

Yes, if you will.

Speaker 2:

And that's how. That's how the enemy comes in and he's so alluring, and or that, and again, we discussed that before. That again just another example of that that yeah, all these things may seem enticing and they fulfill temporarily, but they're not going to do that ever in the last in fulfillment.

Speaker 1:

Right, and you know, that kind of brings us to the fjord when they all converge on this fjord.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And Anna is out there freezing to death. She's trying to look for Christoph because she's like Christoph is my true love, that's who I need, the need to kiss me and then I'll be okay. So she goes and ventures out. Christoph realizes he loves her and wants to go after her. And Elsa is out there as well, and so is is Hans, and so they all come on this, this fjord. Hans finds Elsa and is about to strike her down and kill her when Anna sees she's going for, for Christoph. And then she sees Elsa about to be struck down and she turns away from Christoph and goes towards, towards Elsa.

Speaker 1:

And you find that, that sacrificial love. So you know, to me that just kind of well, it shows the sacrificial love first of all, but then it also shows me that you know the things that are, even the things that are good can distract us from the truth. So what Anna needed was Elsa, or what Elsa needed, I suppose, was to love her sister, to show that love to Anna, and that would be able to break the spell, to break the curse. So, while Christoph is good, he's not bad. Hans is bad, but Christoph is good. So I mean Christoph could represent, I suppose you know, meditating and praying, and reading your Bible.

Speaker 2:

All the, all the supplemental stuff that reinforces.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all good things, but, like, sometimes, those things become habit and they become ritual rather than relationship and what we need to do is just put all of that down and we need to say all right, god, I'm here, what do you want? You know, what do you want from me? I actually had to do that last weekend when I, for like a week or two, I had just kind of I had this like restless feeling for a long time and I didn't really know what was going on. Finally, saturday morning, I was sitting down to do some Bible study and I had been kind of feeling like I've just been doing my Bible study because I need to do it, rather than actually like being in relationship with God, which is, you know, the whole point. So I'm journaling, doing my thing, and I'm like you know what? I just really get the sense that God is wanting to tell me something, and has been for a couple of weeks, and I just haven't been listening, and so I put down my pen and I sit there and I go all right, god, here I am, I'm listening, and as soon as I did that, he gave me some insight into my life.

Speaker 1:

He was like you're doing too much right now. You need to take a break, and so I decided I'm not going to be taking this extra class here coming up. That's starting Monday. I need, I need a break. I need a break from school. Oh, I've been going crazy, but if I hadn't have taken the time to stop and listen and to be in relationship with God, I probably would have continued on and, you know, really hurt myself in the process, potentially become burned out with school and really not been any good or any fun or really present for the holiday season coming up, and so that was just so important. So that was one instance where Christoph the good was getting in the way of the best the relationship with God, the loving relationship between Elsa and Anna, and yeah, so that's what I think.

Speaker 2:

All very good points and I was gonna brand the point where Anna's persistence and just her drive for her sister, and that she's, you know, trying to get her sister's attention, saying, hey, I'm here to help you, I'm here, you know. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out together, just like in the refrise. And I was gonna make the analogy of like God going after the lost sheep that we've made that too many times.

Speaker 1:

I mean it's a good thing, it's a lot though.

Speaker 2:

When God tries to get your attention, or that he, just like you were saying a little bit ago that he's persistent, but he's also a gentleman Like he'll, he'll find a way, he'll put people in your path or he'll give you some some type of message or a method for that message to reach you.

Speaker 2:

Basically once you're in a relationship with you, just like Anna, once that you're in a relationship with Elsa, her sister, and you, just going at it is like listen, I know you've caused an eternal winter. I know you would never intentionally hurt me. Let's work through this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it goes back to that fear that Elsa has in her heart not in her head, but as in her heart that she's not gonna be easily, you know, taking like that, just like with mental health, you have depression or whatever you say I'll, you know, fuck up and be happy and this is like the worst thing you could possibly say.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like, don't you think that fried that? So just like then. It's not easy, it is a process and for those of you who are dealing with fear and just thought, the civil world and everything, whether you're religious or not and I think more people are going to inclusion there's a higher tower at work and he has everything in control. So rest and know on that. If you're dealing with fear or any type.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, and I was looking up earlier other stories in the Bible where people were dealing with severe fear and I found some really good ones. So I shall read some of them out.

Speaker 2:

What a translation is this? I'm just curious.

Speaker 1:

Google search.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so all of them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean these are just some of the stories in the Bible. Moses he classic, oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Moses was scared to confront Pharaoh. He was like I don't want to love, I don't want to talk to my brother about letting your people go. God, that's scary. I don't want to talk in front of people, that's scary. But then God sent, you know, of course, the 10 plagues, and then the miracle of escaping through the Red Sea and the parting of the Red Sea. And then we've got the story of the 10 scouts who explored the promised land. But they came back terrified, saying we are but grasshoppers in their sight. Oh, they're giants. They were all very scared and because of that they wandered around. The Israelites wandered around for 40 years in the desert because they were scared. Is that not crazy? Yeah, well, and the problem was that they came back and they discouraged the rest of the Israelite camps that they should be afraid to. So that's like that was not good Jonah. Jonah was afraid of God's command to go preach to the Ninevites, so he ran away and, a result of that, he got swallowed by a fish, stayed in there for a while until he finally repented. So David was a young shepherd boy who faced the giant Goliath with faith and courage, while the rest of the Israelite army was terrified Talk about paralyzed with fear. They were all scared because they didn't really trust God. But David did.

Speaker 1:

And then Peter was one of Jesus's closest disciples, but he denied Jesus three times out of fear for what the Jewish authorities would do to him if they found out that they were associated. And he later asked for forgiveness. And, you know, wonderful altogether. And even Jesus even Jesus was afraid, you know, he was afraid. On the cross, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed. He prayed to be set free from his task, of what he needed to do, but he prayed, lord, let your will be done, not my will. And I think that goes to show too, even that, like I think a lot of times emotions are really demonized and they're looked at as a sin, like, oh, you shouldn't be angry, anger is a sin, or you shouldn't be afraid, because that means you're not trusting God and that's a sin.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, no, these are just emotions. Now if they can lead you to sin, that's when they become, you know, troublesome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I say a lot of times is that emotions are indicators of something else going on. They are not in and of themselves bad. It's what you do when you have those emotions and when you let those emotions control you, that can become a problem, like Elsa. Elsa was consumed by fear and she did hurt the people around her because she let the fear consume her, and that's not good. That's not good.

Speaker 1:

But when you brought love in, suddenly that magic that could hurt people helps people and it's beautiful and wonderful and that's the way that it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be done with love. You know it reminds me of I know it's such a cliche chapter at this point, but 1 Corinthians 13, which is talking about love. But basically Paul is saying in the letter to the Corinthians he's like if I have not love, if you could do, you could serve all of the poor, you can give all of your money away to help build churches and charities and you know all of these wonderful things, hand food out, but if you don't do it with love, it's worth nothing. Love is everything. Everything you need, you do, needs to be done with love, and that is certainly the case for Elsa. Love was the answer. She was using her magic in fear rather than in love, and that's when it became. Beautiful is when it was in love.

Speaker 2:

And so they're on myself, and that really sums up the whole movie and our allegory was related to a biblical perspective and in fear, look at all, fear, sacrificial love, all that great stuff. So maybe I haven't seen it, which in 10 years.

Speaker 1:

I can't imagine you haven't, but definitely go watch it.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Becca any closing remarks as we close this episode.

Speaker 1:

No, no, just that. I'm excited for what's to come for the rest of the year, excited about all of the holiday season coming up. It's exciting.

Speaker 2:

And we did do a poll about a couple of weeks ago because, for whatever reason, just a king of dreams has been our most listened to episode out of the history of our podcast to date.

Speaker 1:

I don't even remember what we said. Honestly, I think that was.

Speaker 2:

It was like it was episode nine.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my goodness, that was early on. I remember being really upset before before we started recording. And it's two more Bible study, oh yeah, and I was like, no, I'm not ready. And I was upset and then we, we did it and you pulled out the pharaoh phrasing. And it was funny and it turned out to be great.

Speaker 2:

So, actually, if you want us to do more animated Bible story centered episodes and so we will, and I can tell you which one that we're going to do that we're going to try to fit one in Before we do our whole Christmas series in December. I kind of going to do a different thing for that this year. Anyway, until next time, keep those head of Shawnee and stay holding our friends. Bye.

Intro
Analysis of Frozen's Themes
Relationship With God, Overcoming Fear
Biblical Stories and Overcoming Fear

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