Having recently returned from a ten-day visit with my wonderful granddaughter Sophia, I am quite sure I could quote verbatim the entire Disney movie Tangled. You see, Grandma (me) only has a few movies on her iPad, and this is Sophia’s favorite from my selection. Apart from the magical element of Rapunzel’s long mane of hair, navigating with all that dragging behind her meant she faced challenges the shorter haired princesses would never have experienced. When was the last time someone stepped on your hair?
The scripture warns us about carrying around something which would lead to our being entangled. Hebrews 12:1-2 offers this challenge, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
In a sense, if you are living with sin in your life, go get a spiritual haircut! Cut it out! Throw it off!
There are also entanglements that do not qualify as outright sin. Paul mentions this to Timothy in a military analogy. 2 Timothy 2:4, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” The problem is not with having civilian pursuits. In our lives, there is nothing wrong with pursuing careers, relationships, goals, etc. unless they take us away from our primary allegiance and keep us from being available to God to be called upon for service at any moment.
Another entanglement is the sort poor Martha experienced in Luke Chapter 10. In all her care for Jesus, the disciples, the house, the meals she ended up being, “anxious and troubled about many things.” Jesus rebuked her kindly and said that her sister Mary had chosen the better part, which was to sit at His feet and listen. Oswald Chambers describes it in the following quote:
“The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best.”
How easy it is to get entangled in all the “good” stuff we think we NEED to accomplish and to miss our time with Jesus!
The natural spiritual outflow of spending time with Jesus is that His love will begin to flow out from our lives to others. Thomas a` Kempis describes this love and how it changes our desires to keep us from entanglements.
Love is a great
thing, yea, a great and thorough good.
By itself it makes that which is heavy light;
and it bears evenly all that is uneven.
It carries a burden which is no burden;
it will not be kept back by anything low and mean;
It desires to be free from all worldly affections,
and not to be entangled by any outward prosperity,
or by any adversity subdued.
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble,
attempts what is above its strength,
pleads no excuse of impossibility.
It is therefore able to undertake all things,
and it completes many things and warrants them to take effect,
where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Though weary, it is not tired;
though pressed it is not straightened;
though alarmed, it is not confounded;
but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.
Love is active and sincere, courageous, patient, faithful, prudent, and manly.
by Thomas à Kempis.
Think about it, Rapunzel was never free to love until she lost all that hair which entangled her. Then she discovered that the gift was something which was inside of her. Ok I know, that might be a bit of a theological stretch….
However, loving also requires our risking entanglements as C.S. Lewis states,
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
What are we tangled up in today; sin, our own agenda, or even good works? Instead, may God give us grace to allow our lives to become lovingly entangled in the lives of those He has placed around us.
Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Uhrichville: Barbour Publishing Inc., 1963.
Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves. Harcourt, 1971.
Tangled. Dir. Byron Howard Nathan Greno. Walt Disney. 2010. Film.