May I Have This Dance?

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.

Sandwich Hugs

Children speak so eloquently straight from the Spirit.  Smelling the cinnamon rolls my older son was baking for breakfast, I showered and dressed for church on Mother’s Day morning at his house. From the master bedroom I heard my six-year-old granddaughter’s invitation, “Grandma, come and cuddle!”  She’d spent the night in the big king-size bed with Daddy and Mommy so I could sleep in her bed overnight, and that’s where I found her curled up against my daughter-in-law.

Dressed or not, how could I refuse such a wonderful request? I crawled under the sheet and snuggled up next to Elsa for a big hug.

 “Hey, we’re making an Elsa sandwich,” I laughed. Elsa is well acquainted with sandwich hugs, securely squished between Daddy and Mommy, and often with her brother Evan as part of the “filling.” Sandwich hugs were part of our family ritual on weekends when my boys were growing up, too.

On guided tours, night camps and during summer camps when I worked at the Zoo, we always made “instructor sandwiches” to keep the groups of children safely between us adults so no one got lost. I told the children they were the peanut butter, jelly, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, pickles, salami, onions, olives, mustard, mayonnaise – whatever they wanted to be, and they always called out plenty of disgusting combinations to make things fun. I enjoyed encouraging them because it built camaraderie between us. No, we didn’t bunch up into one big hug, and granted, the “filling” tended to ooze out the sides, but we never lost a camper when they stayed between us.

I asked Elsa what kind of filling she was, and she replied, “Cream cheese.” We put our heads together, literally, and tried to decide what Evan might be. “Jelly? Or bologna (or rather, baloney)?” I joked. We tried to figure out how to fit the entire family into one sandwich hug and decided the best “bread” to be between is God our Father and Jesus the Bread of Life.

“One day we all WILL be!” I offered. “Hmm, but what about the Holy Spirit? Are we a triple-decker sandwich? ”

“Oh, he’ll be sprinkled on top of us like poppy seeds,” Elsa smiled, “or like olive oil!”

What a hug that will make with the oil of the Holy Spirit poured out on us! And yes, I do believe in a God so intimately loving as Father that he probably can’t wait to have us all safely in his arms. I suspect that’s where we are in this life too, when we make him our Father, whether we feel it or not.

Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.  Deuteronomy 33:12

Then Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty . . . All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” John 6: 35-39

Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you . . . He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”  John 14: 20-21.

Do I feel lonely since I lost the man I loved? Yes, of course I do, painfully so sometimes, and I long for arms to wrap me again securely in faithful love. But till that time, and even after, I sometimes do truly feel God’s presence and always will believe the one with me is the One who reminds me, “The one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.” He doesn’t want any of us lost.

I call that a hug to be cherished, don’t you?

Six-year-old arms are pretty wonderful, too: “Grandma, you and Mommy are blueberry bagels today.”

A “ . . . BUT . . . “ to move:  God, I feel so alone sometimes. Even in the middle of a crowd, and even in the middle of family, still I long to truly feel your arms around me. I want all my family with me in that hug, BUT no matter how far they are or how far I feel from you, I’ll let you be the bread of life and dare to believe that you want to ____________________________________________________________________________________. Scandalous intimacy, I know, but a scandalous love wraps me in an eternal sandwich hug!