Dancing With God

All of us have an inner longing for guidance from God. It has been noted that guidance stands for God-U-I-Dance. A writer in an Upper Room devotional shared a valuable insight of God's guidance from ballroom dancing. The role of the man in ballroom dancing is to empower the lady “to express beauty, elegance, and grace.” She was only able to enjoy the dance with a partner who is confident in leading and guiding her steps. Her experience with dancing led to realise that leading is not dominance. God does not want to dominate us but He wants to lead us with His loving Hands so that our lives will reflect His beauty and grace to a world that is dominated by fear and chaos.

Our other misconceptions about God's will and obedience also keep us from living our Chrisitan life with joy. David Robert Ord saw God's will as an invitation rather than as an imposition. God is our Divine Lover who invites us to join Him to bring love to our loveless world. God is not a tyrant king who is bent on making us do His will. Obedience is not trying to fulfill the commands of an authoritarian ruler but the discipline of paying attention to the presence of God's Holy Spirit within us. Our Christian journey is to be one of joy and peace. Our faith in our loving Heavenly Father is, in the words of David Robert Ord, to be the “launching pad for a life empowered by both reason and passion.”

Repentance is also not feeling sorry for our wrong behaviours but recognising that we have wandered away from God's presence and seeking to turn back to Him. Likewise, confession is not a recitation of our sins but confessing our helplessness and our need for God's grace.

While holidaying on a cruise ship in September, my wife and I were watching two girls teaching Cha Cha Cha. The steps were simple:

Backwards, Forwards, To The Right

Forwards, Backwards , To The Left.

This gave me an insight about dancing the Cha Cha Cha with God:

Repentance is taking a step backwards followed by Confession which is taking a step forward. To the right reminds us that Jesus is Lord. We then take the step forwards through self examination followed by the step backwards into the world with a prayer to be the instruments of God's redeeming grace. And we take the step to the left as we praise the Lord. And so we can have a rhythm of Cha Cha Cha in our devotional life as follows:

Repentance – Confession- Jesus is Lord.

Self examination – Prayer – Praise the Lord

We are created to be the vessels of God's love and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God. Nothing can fill our deepest desire for God. So let us pray that God will teach us to dance with Him so that our lives will be filled with passsion instead of apathy and resignation. Let us delight in the Lord so that we will pay attention to the desire to be windows of God's love and grace and not to be mirrosr of our selfish wants and needs.