Who comes to mind when you think of someone dancing? I shared a few of my favorites in the last post, but there are certainly others. A few are found in photos with this post, but who is your favorite couple?

 

I didn’t grow up in a family that danced or even believed in dancing, but by the time I was in high school those more rigid rules had softened. That was a great thing except I didn’t know how to dance and when I went to the few choral balls connected with our high school choir, I am not really sure that the guys did either. They sort of walked in time to the music.

 

I loved the musicals our choirs produced every year and some of the dancing choreography was so beautiful. (No, I wasn’t chosen for any of those parts.)

 

A part of me had fallen in love with Cinderella dancing with the prince, just as I had when Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr floated around the dance floor in The King and I. Such images left me always wishing I could be swept away in a dance even though I had no idea how to dance or who might dance with me.

 

When my husband and I were working full-time jobs, going to graduate school at night, and handling the responsibility of our household and children in college, we had a chance to take some ballroom dancing lessons. We both agreed it would be a great way to relax and have fun in the midst of such a hectic season.

 

I don’t recall how many lessons we had, but enough to start to enjoy it more than the first night we stepped onto the floor. One of the things that helped us both was when we each danced with one of the instructors. For me, that was really great fun because I just needed to follow the instructor’s lead no matter what he did or where he went. I also knew he knew exactly what to do and how to do it. I trusted him and forgot about myself.

 

Sometimes the challenge for those of us not naturally gifted at dancing is our own self-consciousness. I certainly felt that way as someone who didn’t know how to dance. Because I felt that way, my focus was not on the music but on me. Little wonder that my first attempts did not go well (especially if my partner felt the same way).

 

So how do I know we were made for dancing or that we might one day be called upon to dance?

 

One answer can be found in Psalm 149:3 NIV:

 

“Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.”

 

 If you read my post from November 2, 2016, I shared the image of our relationship with Jesus was like a dance that He had invited us to enjoy with Him. The image might be both exciting and terrifying based on how we view dancing or our ability to dance and that points to one of the problems.

 

When Jesus invites us to dance, it is not dependent on our skill or ability. If we trust Him and His ability, all we need to do is take His hand and fall into His arms. He will do the rest! We can focus on looking in His eyes and listening to His whispers in our ear, sensing His love as He holds us close to Him. If we let Him lead, no one will ever know we have never had dance lessons. I know that is true because my instructor in the ballroom dance lessons made me look amazing when he danced with me even though I didn’t know anything at all at the beginning.

 

Would the images I have suggested ever happen? Perhaps not, but the principles related to the image of dancing with Him still hold true for us.

 

Our focus needs to shift from ourselves to Him.

 

 We need to trust Him and His leadership for each step.

 

 We need to accept His invitation to move closer to Him.

 

 We also need to feel deep love and passion for Christ.

 

I love the words of Martha Graham:

 

“Great dancers are not great because of their technique. They are great because of their passion.”

 

Are we passionate about Him?

 

 

 

 

 

What is it that so captivates our imaginations as the invitation to dance? As little girls this love of dancing seems to almost come instinctively as we twirl around in skirts or dresses that flow around us.

 

So many of us love pretending to be Cinderella in the arms of the prince in pretend play or perhaps Giselle in the more recent movie, Enchanted, as she swirls around the dance floor with Robert. For those of us who are older, the scene from The King and I, where Yul Brynner leads Deborah Kerr to the strains of the song “Shall We Dance?”

 

Yes, I love all of those scenes and the music as it swells to perfect waltz time. Certainly there are so many other dance steps, but none captures quite as much imagination as the waltz I think.

 

One of my favorite memories is a less famous dance scene. It happened a number of years ago at the reception of our son and daughter-in-law’s wedding. My parents were still alive then and our son had enjoyed a very special relationship with my mother, his grandma. I had lived with my parents when I was pregnant and my husband was serving overseas, so David was born when we lived there and that seemed to create an extra bond between them.

 

My mother had never danced in her life, but it wasn’t because she was against dancing. Growing up on a farm and later marrying a farmer meant her life was one more of work and simple pleasures at the end of a long day instead of a flowing dress and a dance tune. I know she must have loved dancing, however, because when they saw an occasional movie when they were sweethearts it often featured Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

 

So it was special indeed, when our son invited my mother to dance with him at his wedding reception. Despite never having been on the dance floor, she trusted him to lead her wherever she was supposed to go. It was a wondrous sight to me. It was a delight to also see my husband dancing with our daughter, his little girl, at her wedding reception a few years later. In many ways she had been his first baby since he had been gone when our son was born and not seen him until he was eight months old.

 

Of all the music we may love or dance to, the design of dancing a waltz means we will be held in an embrace to do so. If we are in the arms of someone as the music swells and he takes our hand it will be easy for us to imagine ourselves in the grandest of settings no matter where we are dancing. We will also discover something.

 

We must let him lead us. A waltz can never work or navigate across a floor when both people are trying to lead.

 

In his wonderful book, The Divine Embrace, by Ken Gire, he compares our relationship with Christ as one where He embraces us in a wondrous waltz. He asks the reader to imagine what it is like to have Him invite us to dance. The description is one worth sharing.

 

“Imagine yourself in a ballroom. Imagine that the Emperor, the Lord Jesus himself, has tapped your shoulder. Hear his voice as he speaks your name and asks you to dance. It is not a dance you have done before. You’re uncertain about it, maybe a little fearful—hesitant to participate. But take a chance; step out onto the dance floor. As the Emperor draws you near, look into his eyes. Place your palm in his. And follow his lead.”

 

What an incredible scene! He has whispered my name or yours and made an invitation that may terrify us and yet we cannot refuse. How we might wish to have had dance lessons! 

 

The metaphor is a rich one because He does indeed desire to lead us and hold us close to Him.

 

I think if we can in that moment trust Him even as my mother did our son that snowy night 28 years ago and let Him lead us wherever He may choose, then our focus may be less on technique and more on delighting in Him as we look into His eyes. It is then we will realize it is all about loving!

 

Ken Gire puts it this way:

 

“There are places he wants to take us on the dance floor, things he wants to show us, feelings he wants to share with us, words he wants to whisper in our ear. This is what the divine embrace is—an invitation to a more intimate relationship with Christ, one exhilarating, ennobling, uncertain step at a time.

 

 We have a choice, you and I. And it’s a choice we make every day, throughout the day. The choice is this:

 

We can dance. Or we can sit it out.”

 

What will I choose each day?

 

What will you?

 

I pray we will learn the two things Ken Gire writes that he learned from the divine embrace.

 

“Perfect love really does cast out fear. And I would rather dance poorly with Jesus than sit perfectly with anyone else.”