Let's Dance!

I am up early as I had a pretty awesome dream and there is no going to sleep at present.  I am going to try to capture the basics of it before I forget.

In my dream, we (our church) were gathering together with a couple of other churches to pray.  We were doing this in some sort of empty lot, away from others view, I think because of some persecution that was rising up (Not sure about that, but it seems like that was the case).  

Anyway, for some reason I had been asked to help lead the worship time, and instead of playing music the Lord directed me to lead the gathered people in dancing before Him, without any music!  He wanted us to learn to worship Him with our bodies, to press past our insecurities, our pride and our vanity, and to worship Him.  We had this incredible time of just dancing before the Lord, no words were spoken, no music was played, we each were expressing, and learning to express our worship and praise of God with just our bodies!  It was incredible!  At some point, it seems like it was 20-30 minutes in, the Lord released us to start worshipping Him with our voices, and it was glorious!   We were actually so given to dancing, or maybe we were just out of breath, thatt it started quietly at first.  Soon though, it was a thunderous session of praise and worship, tongues and singing, mixed with dancing, like I have never seen before. 

Finally, once we were finished, we were standing around talking, one of the young men came up to me and told me that he needed to be honest that he was very uncomfortable with all of that.  I told him I totally understood and gave him grace.  I told Him I was uncomfortable doing it as well, and I had been doing it for 20+ years.  

One other guy came up to me and introduced himself as a Baptist pastor, and he had several of His congregation with him.  He was thanking me for leading us into areas he had never gone before.  And that is where I woke up.  

I am not sure if I was actually sleep-praising, but my spirit was all fired up!

When I woke up I was reminded of a time at IHOP (International House of Prayer here in KC)  many years ago where the Lord had me break out into wild praise dancing one evening.  I can't describe it as any thing else.  I don't remember how I danced, I only know I danced with my eyes mostly closed, and just gave it everything I had and moved to any area where I was pretty sure I wouldn't hurt anybody or myself.  I had been moved by the percussionist that evening and apparently so had others, for by the time I couldn't dance anymore from sure exhaustion, there were many others dancing.  I believe there was also a bit of a breakthrough that night for many people, pushing past their own insecurities and just dancing before the Lord.  

I was also reminded of an older man I once knew, from a  church we belonged to 30+ years ago where dance broke out.  He had a bad heart and could only beat his arms up and down!  The rest of our church would be hopping around, and he would be moving his arms as fast as He could... its not about the ability, its about our heart motivation!

As I laid in bed, I was thinking about why I struggle to dance before the Lord, and realized that down deep, I don't want to sully my worship and praise of Him with dance moves I have learned on the dance floor, dancing to rock and roll.  I want to give him something better.  

As I was thinking about that, I was reminded of the time I was complaining about my singing voice, how as a worship leader I could bring Him better praise and worship with a better voice.  He actually got a bit indignant and said something to the effect of, "So you don't think I knew what I was doing when I made you, exactly the way I wanted?  What makes you think you know what sounds good to me?"  I was a bit shaken by that and definitely repented of my attitude, and thanked Him for my voice, that He had given me!  

So I guess, the point is, God made our bodies to move and sing, so don't worry about how we move or how we sound, but just dance and sing  and worship Him with our bodies, and our voices!

The strong sense I have is the Lord is moving us into uncomfortable times!  He is going to ask us to press past what we know, what we have experienced and into new territory.  Some of us have seen this before, but like Caleb and Joshua, the fullness of our experience is ahead of us!  Let us press forward, past our insecurities, past our vanity, past our human weakness (my 4 knee surgeries and 3 spinal surgeries are often my excuse for not dancing) and into the new things the Lord has for us!  He is going to bring others along side us, and some of us might not be ready for this level of pressing in, and we need to extend grace to all!   

We are going to get messy and sweaty and make mistakes and look silly, and all sorts of stuff, but the Lord, loves us in all of it!  When children are learning to crawl, then walk, then run, they are really bad at it, at first.  As parents, we don't berate them for their inability, we encourage them in their trying!  I really feel the Father's heart encouraging us to go for it, to do our best and to grow in our abilities, and loving us in and through every false-step, every misstep and every stumble!  Let us press into everything the Lord has for us! 

Amen and Amen!