Aladdin

Aladdin was just on TV so I decided to eat my dinner while I watched the last half of it.  I have got to get the Disney princess movies on DVD because I just love them.  While I realize there are multiple things wrong with these movies (we actually recently talked about this in my social psych class) something really stuck out to me today.

At the end Jafar used his third wish to be turned into a genie.  He wanted to be the most powerful man in the world and have the ability to magically make anything happen.  But what he didn't realize was that in being turned into a genie, though he would have the ability to do all things, he would live a life in chains.  Genies aren't free.  [In Aladdin] genies are mystical creatures that live their lives in a confined space (a lamp), with shackles on their wrists--only called out when someone rubs the lamp.  They live their lives to serve their masters, never using their powers for anything other than being a slave to someone else.  Jafar received this pseudofreedom.

Sometimes we choose lives of sin because we think that having the power to make our own choices and write our own endings somehow makes us free.  What we don't realize is that when this happens, we are actually trading the freedom that Christ offers us to be a prisoner.  The chains clasp around our hands and we realize that we've been tricked.  Satan is so quick to deceive us.

Freedom does not come when you use your resources to only make yourself more powerful.  Freedom comes when you resist sin and rely fully on Christ to fill you.  Living for yourself has the illusion of liberty, but living for Jesus is what actually provides that freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)