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As I was leading worship at church recently, I looked out at the people gathered and noticed a young disabled boy in a wheelchair. As we got ready to sing, his father scooped him up in his arms and held the little boy as the music began. And as we began worshipping, the little boy began to squirm, which caught my attention, so I began to watch what I first thought to be squirming. His face with covered with a giant smile and his head tilted back as if glowing in the light of his father. I began to see that he was moving to the time of the music, not autonomously, but with the help of his father in what could only be called a dance. Together, the two of them danced to the rhythms of joy as we sang songs of worship to our Father in heaven and I then began to sense the soft voice of my Father calling me, speaking to me. He began to show me that I was like the little boy in so many ways and that the dance I had witnessed was the dance of intimacy in worship. For just as the father scooped the boy up in his arms as the music began, so also the Father scoops each of us in His arms and embraces as we meet with Him. There in His arms is all the safety and intimacy we could ever know. All around us, we can feel His deep, endless love in His arms. But then we realize how incomplete we are and we begin to see that we don’t even have the power or ability to begin the dance on our own. It is He who initiates the dance. Our Father reaches down with His loving hands and picks us up and helps us begin the dance.
At first it appears as
though we are just wiggling. It is awkward and doesn’t feel natural at first,
but safe in His arms we begin to sense the rhythms of grace and feel true joy
pulse through our veins as if those rhythms were in fact stronger than the pulse
of our heart. Then as we begin to move with those rhythms, the dance begins to
take its shape and we find ourselves moving gracefully, not because of any skill
of our own, but because of His skill and His grace. As we let go and allow us
to be moved be Him, we find that the dance begins to feel more natural and look
more graceful. The beauty and grace of our Father begins to manifest itself in
us as we surrender to Him. And Oh what a moment that is. Every part of our
being longs to be there forever… dancing with our Father. How unbelievably sad
to even think that it would ever end, but alas it does. For the length of the
dance, we begin to think that perhaps we were created for this... this Dance.
And we were…
But sin has entered our world and has corrupted and perverted the Dance. However, for those of us that embrace Jesus, and in doing so also the Father (*John 5:23-24, **8:19), we will one day enter the Dance that never ends. And glory upon glory, we won’t have to be picked up in our Fathers arms to dance so beautifully because we will be made new. Our bodies will no longer suffer decay and sickness: we will be perfect. And face to face we will embrace our Father in the Dance of forever, where we will never grow tired or faint because we are strengthened by the presence and consuming love of our Father, the great Dancer.
*He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. John 5:2-24
**"If you knew me, you would know my Father also." John 8:19
