Once you make the decision that you are going into the unknown, you may be tempted to turn back to the land of familiar and stay frozen. Fear can be paralyzing if we feed it. But fear isn’t our true nature. God patterned us after Himself. We are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26,27). God did not make us in His image to be afraid or frozen or disconnected. Our true God-bearing nature is to be full of His power, His love, and His wisdom (2 Timothy 1:7). When we discover who God is, then we can find out who we are and reach out to give and to receive love in healthy ways.
If we reach out with all of our mistrust and guards up, we are wearing our old frozen clothing. If you’ve ever worn frozen clothing, you can’t feel anything good about yourself or feel good about others. Like when I was 17 years old. I was in Minnesota finishing up my late-night shift at Pizza Hut. It was 2 a.m. I soaked through my clothes, having just washed all of the dishes. I walked outside and the windchill was 75 degrees below zero. I felt like I was instantly wearing frozen clothes, and I thought I was going to die.
Mistrust can be paralyzing. Going inward can feel much safer, but in time, we begin to close or clothe ourselves off and emotionally distance ourselves to the place of trusting no one with our heart, our feelings, or our stories. If our frozen clothes tell everyone to “keep out” but we’re still acting friendly on the outside, people can hear the message under the frown or the smile and “keep out.” They’ll feel our reluctance to engage or our judgment and keep their distance just as we are. This pattern can become pervasive and devastating to the place where we don’t trust anyone, and we just live in isolation, fear, and anger, or we don’t feel anything anymore. When the enemy gets us to isolate ourselves from the people whom God has placed around us, we create an igloo. Have we created a cold-culture igloo and just put a new label on it and called it our new normal? Stay away. Keep out. Just give me what makes me feel comfortable and leave me alone. How can we ever build connected friendships when we’re afraid to come out and play together?
How do we thaw out when we’re frozen? God’s love and God’s Word melts me every day. While I was writing today, the Holy Spirit took me to 2 Timothy 1:6,7 “…I want to remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So you must never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord…” God wants to melt through our frozen emotions and igloo and fan into flames the gifts that He’s given you. It may feel like you’re frozen, but you have some smoldering ashes from when your heart was fully alive. God isn’t going to send a wind and do it for you. He’s reminding us that it’s our responsibility to fan into flames the gifts that He’s given us. Other people aren’t responsible for us thawing out and coming alive again. But we must be reminded again and again what our true nature is. Power, love, and self-discipline (or a sound mind). If we’re not mindful of whose we are and who we are, then we can concoct a new revised version of ourselves that is far from the truth defined by our Creator. Don’t be duped!
God has a way of sending us the truth and the right people at the right moments when we need to be told and shown that we’re known and loved by God. It sure helps to believe the truth when someone touches us and shows us the love of Christ. Jesus with skin on sure feels better than our frozen clothes and frozen feelings. But we may still be skeptical and prefer frozen even if we want to give and to receive love. How do we learn to trust love and trust ourselves and trust people again when we’ve been hurt, rejected, abandoned, or have isolated ourselves in fear of bad things happening again? How can we begin to let our thoughts and feelings come out and play again when they’ve been stuffed and frozen inside?
It’s going to warm up soon, and it’s going to be walking weather again. Instead of staying inside or walking alone, why not call a friend or knock on a door and invite your neighbor to go for a walk with you? Why not venture out with your noticing eyes and find someone who needs some encouragement? If your neighbor is shy or afraid to go outside for fear of falling on the ice or getting sick, why not just bring them something to enjoy like a cup of coffee, a loaf of homemade bread, or a good book that you just finished reading? Why not invite them over for dinner or invite them to go out for coffee or tea?
Why not build a fire in your neighborhood fire pit that someone has and invite the neighbors to make s’mores together and go inside and watch a movie together? You live in your neighborhood by God’s design. Not to build fences to keep people out or to just stay inside. We’re better together. That’s how God thaws us out: by connecting us with other people who bear His loving image.
We’ll begin to feel like we’re starting to thaw out when we allow ourselves to start smiling and laughing again. We can start by just making goofy faces at ourselves in the mirror
or by sharing hilarious stories from yesteryear. “Hey, do you remember when…?” And before we know it, God will orchestrate a grand thawing of our inner world and will connect us with people who also need to be warmed by His Spirit. He’ll take these frozen hearts and replace them with hearts designed to know and to love like Jesus knows and loves us. It starts with a desire and a simple care prayer. “Lord, open my heart to receive Your love and to give Your love to others. Bump me into someone today who needs Jesus and teach me again how to love and to be loved.”
Lyrics by Cody Jay Carnes, Matt Maher, Ran Matthew Jackson