A few weeks ago someone told me that God wants me to know that He loves it when I dance for Him. While I probably kinda knew that deep down, it was still pretty amazing to hear. Now to be clear, I'm pretty sure I don't have a lot of natural talent for dancing. But I do really enjoy worshiping God with dance, although that hasn't always been the case.
It all really started about a year and a half ago while I was in Oklahoma. I was at a 24-hour BURN in - essentially 24 hours of worship. After about 4 or 5 hours of just worshiping, I felt God tell me to dance, and I knew He meant 'floaty' dancing, that kinda 'un-cool' sort of dancing. I had little intention of doing that, so I tried to dismiss the thought. The thought just kept coming though, along with reminders of times I'd told God I'd do anything for Him and even one time I'd told God He could even take my dignity! I was at the front of the church building, and I knew I was about to look like an idiot.
Eventually I saw I was fighting a losing battle, so I gave in and made up about 10 seconds of generic 'floaty' dancing, finishing nicely on my knees. God then told me to dance some more, so I got up and danced again for maybe 30 seconds. One more time God said the same thing, so I then just completely surrendered and danced freely for about 5 minutes or so. I've rarely felt that free, it was an amazing feeling. So since then every so often I've had the opportunity to dance in worship, and sometimes I've lost the battle with my self-consciousness, and other times won.
Now clearly I love to worship with music - it's probably how I express myself best, and it can be so much fun to play and sing. But there's something about dancing for me that is a little bit different. I guess it could be because when I dance, it's completely for God, I really don't dance apart from to worship Him. And when I play music, others may enjoy that, but I'm fairly sure my dancing isn't great to watch. David's example in 2 Samuel 6 inspires me, where he said “It was before the LORD". He simply didn't care what anyone else was thinking of him.
So now sometimes in the prayer room here in Jakomäki I put on a cd and dance before God, knowing that He loves it when I dance for Him. Recently I've been dancing along to 'JOY' from IHOP Awakenings, and yes, it is great fun. But I'm dancing in adoration for the Eternal King who delights in me, why shouldn't that be fun?
This is the first song from that album
1 comment:
Veli, thanks for sharing this. It's good to hear the floaty dancing story again! Plus, you sum it up for me so well as to why I dance, too. Here's a thought for you though: If you hadn't have done those five minutes of floaty dancing, I might never have danced in the rain with you. I'm so glad you did.
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