Early on a
Sunday morning I gave Jesus an invitation: ”Do what will bring YOU joy, Jesus.
Come and dance in my life! Do what will delight you in my life today!”
In the
middle of praying, reading the Bible and singing praise songs, I felt the urge
to text a friend who plays bass guitar on a worship team. “No, you shouldn’t
interrupt the flow of worship.” I told myself. “Pay attention to the Holy
Spirit!” But against my better religious judgment, I went to my phone and sent the
text saying I was dancing with Jesus to “Praise to the Lord, The Almighty” on
the worship CD of the praise band he plays in and prayed Jesus would dance in
joyous delight that morning at church through my friend and his team. Bear in
mind that I hadn’t contacted this friend in over four months when I write what then
happened.
I returned
to my own singing, and sure enough, I felt somehow that I’d missed the moment,
spiritually speaking. I went on to another train of thought in my prayer
journal until a jingle from my phone told me I’d received a text message. My
friend texted something that stopped me in mid-journaling: “Your timing is
impeccable. I’m preparing to play all three services at Bel Air this morning
for the first time in a couple of months. Thanks so much!”
Jesus, YOU
did it! YOU were leading me in a dance of blessing in my friend’s life, and I
never suspected I was dancing with you when I texted him! My prayer journal page morphed into a drawing
of a wild series of footsteps punctuated by the words in capital letters “DANCE
ALL OVER ME! DANCE ALL OVER MY LIFE! Every place your feet dance, there lives
and resides and rules and reigns your GLORY!”
Oh, Lord,
never let me be so ”religious” that I miss the blessings you want to pour out
to and through and for me!
Take center
stage, Jesus! Zephaniah 3:17 reads: The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty
to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he
will rejoice over you with singing. The Hebrew word for rejoice in this verse implies mirth, gladness, and twirling dance.
Do I ever
realize, truly get in my gut, that God rejoices over his children? Can I
envision the great I AM giddy with delight when we let him enter into our lives
and direct our feet or our texting fingers? I have a strong hunch that Jesus
wants to dance with me and in my life much more frequently than I extend the
invitation to him. – that my God is much less “religious” than we think – at the
very least, much more intimate and joyful than we ascribe to him - and much more the passionately loving Father
who genuinely cherishes his kids. I need to give him more freedom to be himself
in my life for his own pleasure.
Radical, I
know, when we also have to hold in our consciousness at the same time how truly
holy and set apart God is. I think my limited pound of brain tissue can only
think of him in one frame of reference at a time, so I’ve decided I need to be
more intentional about giving Jesus center stage on the dance floor in my
devotional time. I don’t want to become so familiar that I lose sight of his
holiness, but I don’t want to become so “religious” that I deprive my Creator
of his deepest joy. Maybe that’s what
Jesus had in mind when he told his disciples we have to come to him as little
children. I loved to see my earthly
father grin at me. What a grin I want to see some day on the face of my
Heavenly Father when I take that running leap into his lap and let him twirl
over me and with me “for real.”
In the
meantime, Jesus, yes, you may certainly have this dance! You have impeccable
timing, and your footwork in connecting and blessing would win first place in ”Dancing
With the Stars.” Come to think of it, you probably do!
A “ . . .
BUT . . . “ to move: Sometimes, Jesus, I
keep you at such a holy distance that I know I don’t allow you to enjoy my
relationship with you. It’s hard to think of my God rejoicing over me with
singing, BUT today I choose to let you
_____________________________________________ in and over and through my life
and guide my steps every day.
