2 Samuel 6:14a
People often marvel that David felt free to dance with such abandon before the Lord in the sight of all his people, even though he was a king. But the truth is he was made a king by God precisely because his heart was willing to dance in this way—with a raw, unfettered, passionate devotion to God. The Lord made this clear from the moment of David's anointing: "Man does not see what the Lord sees, for man sees what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). David's heart was willing to dance before God with all of his might. And so the anointing came to him.
What would it look like for you to dance before the Lord with all of your might? In all honesty, would you be wild and uninhibited, or would you make sure your dancing didn't offend those around you? Would you be timid or bold in your expression?
Life with Jesus is a dance. It's a daily interplay of His Spirit with ours—the subtle lead and follow of His gentle pressing, and our surrender to the movements of His hand. Or so it's meant to be. But we often resist His lead—or lose sight of Him altogether in the distractions of lesser matters.
Consider the way you're living before God right now. What sort of dance are you dancing with Him? If you had to name it, what would your dance be called? Is it a dance of fear, timidity, or hesitation? A dance of surrender, of might, of wild abandon? Or something in between?
From Fear to Understanding
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30).
What is it to love God in this way—with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength? We all agree we should do it. It's easy to assess our love for God on a general, life-perspective level. But when it comes down to loving God on an everyday level, our vision for what this actually looks like often grows fuzzy and indistinct. Some of us secretly think it's impractical. We have obligations. We have bills, chores, stresses, and deadlines, all of which demand a portion of our strength and focus. It would be nice to give God everything all the time, but it just can't be done. Perhaps when we get to heaven, we'll know that sort of life, but for now, we must content ourselves with glimpses and dreams and hope for a time when we have more time.
But that's only a justification. The deeper reality is that we're afraid. Afraid to relinquish control on such a grand scale. Afraid that we'll not follow well. Afraid that God will not lead well. Afraid that, in the end, our attempt to dance before Him with all of our might will only make us look foolish on the stage of the world and cause a train wreck of our lives.
There's no shame in being afraid. There has never been a mighty man or woman of God who hasn't faced fear in the course of following God. The danger comes in refusing to recognize it's there—to make believe there's some other reason why you will not step into the wild, abandoned dance that God is inviting you to share with Him.
From Obligation to Free Choice
"I belong to my love, and his desire is for me" (Song of Songs 7:10).
When we hear the command to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30), our minds typically move to places of obligation and duty. "Jesus died for me, so I owe it to Him to love Him and obey His commands. It's the least I can do after all He's done for me." And off we go looking for a list of things we can do to show Him we're towing the line, to demonstrate that we're stand-up men and women of God, to establish that we're good Christian people. The problem with this line of reasoning is that no one has ever fallen in love out of obligation. As long as we believe God's command to love Him stems from a sort of "you owe Me this" mentality on His part, we'll never really love Him as He desires, and we'll never truly understand His heart.
Love is always a free choice. It must always be a free choice, without fear of punishment or reprisal, or else it cannot truly be love. Who wants to be loved out of obligation? I don't, and I seriously doubt you do either. Is it any surprise then that God wants our love for Him to be something more as well?
So what is it to love God in the way He desires? As with any love, it begins by understanding the core desires of His heart. "I belong to my love, and his desire is for me." The entire story of the Bible—from the first scenes with Adam and Eve to the final scene of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven—is the story of a Lover wooing His beloved, simply because He wants to love her. He wants to know her and to make Himself known. He wants to share life together. The story of the Bible is, in essence, God's invitation to dance.
When at last we understand this, we'll find that whatever fear we've had in surrendering our lives to Him disappears. For once you see His heart, you begin to understand at last that the Majestic Creator of the Universe doesn't love you because of what you do or don't do for Him; He loves you because He sees your heart and thinks it's beautiful.
From the Sidelines to the Dance
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6).
The word for acknowledge in this verse is yada. In the most basic sense, it means to "know"—as in, "think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths." But that's only the beginning of the riches this single word holds. The rest of the definition goes something like this: "to know (properly to ascertain by seeing), to be aware of, to recognize, to watch for, to discover, to befriend, to make yourself known to, to learn from." And so we see that the word yada doesn't merely refer to a cursory nod to God's presence in our lives, but it's a description of an intimate awareness and communion between our hearts and God's.
Take it a step further, and expand other key words in the passage. What you get is a beautiful depiction of our daily relationship with God—as He desires it to be: Boldly trust and place your confidence in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely or rest in your own knowledge, wisdom, or understanding. In any and every road you take—both great and small—look for God and see Him, recognize Him, watch Him, be aware of Him, discover Him, befriend Him, reveal yourself to Him, and learn from Him—and He will make your paths straight, pleasant, and prosperous.
Do this, and you'll no longer have to wonder what it would look like for you to dance with all your might before God as David did. For your own dance with Jesus will have already begun.
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