"I Hope You Dance.."

By John Stallings

“I HOPE YOU DANCE!”

That sounds funny; especially coming from a man with two left feet who can’t dance, & would probably have all the grace of a drunken elephant or a man being electrocuted on the dance floor.

Let me explain. I’ve seldom danced because in the home & church where I was raised, dancing was looked on as worldly. My mother told teachers to teach her children to read & write & she’d take care of their social graces.

I do however, remember going to a Junior High School Dance once. I don’t remember why I was there but I know that I was, & in that brief time, although I sat-it-out, I saw the psychology of the dance experience. It was an opportunity for social interaction centered mostly on mingling, & boys asking girls to dance. At this dance, the fear of failure & rejection was almost palpable. There was the dance floor with plenty of room, & some were dancing while others were sitting in chairs along the walls. Frankly I was happy that my parents frowned on dancing because in later years it gave me a cop-out & as a bonus I could look “spiritual.”

To me, the whole dance experience is a little picture of life so I use the title, “I hope you dance.” You’ve probably heard the Lee Ann Womack song -it’s been a popular country song over the last few years. I believe it was writen by a man/woman team and I'm sorry I don't have their names as I write this. Anyway, when you listen to the lyrics, you understand that dancing, at least in the mind of the writers, has more to do with involvement in life than actual dancing. One line says, “If you get a chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” “Dancing” means taking initiative & not sitting on the sidelines of life never accomplishing or enjoying anything. It means thinking about our potential & the legacy we want to leave in this world. It means to sing more-- laugh more-- learn more-- love more-- & live more. “Dance.”

You might wonder how my one experience at a Junior High School Dance could stick with me for fifty plus years & I wonder the same thing. I remember sitting on the sidelines with other shy students like myself, though we’d never have admitted being shy. I also remember there wasn’t a lack of pretty girls, & how ineffectual we wallflowers felt though it was never spoken. I’m sure the girls who weren’t all that busy on the floor probably had the same sinking feeling in their stomachs we guys had.

Looking back, maybe the wallflowers had come to the dance from a long string of failures. Maybe the terror of looking foolish kept us from venturing out & taking a risk to ask a girl to dance. Maybe we felt the others were the real “players” & we were fakes. (Maybe we didn’t know how to dance.) Anyway, I do remember that I left with a keen sense of disappointment in myself that I hadn’t participated. The dance floor was right there, but for me there may as well have been a moat between me & it, filled with hungry crocodiles. Thankfully as time progressed I was able to shake this awful shyness for it’s certain that nothing much will happen in a life unless an individual breaks out of their shell & finds some initiative.

INITIATIVE IS A CRUCIAL COMPONENT IN LIFE

One definition of initiative is, “The willingness to do the thing that needs to be done without being prodded.”

• In 1 Sam. 14 there’s a very interesting story of Saul & his son Jonathan. This story finds Israel at war with the Philistines. Actually to say they were at war would be pushing it because Israel had a small army & was hesitant to go meet the enemy. You’ve got King Saul sitting under a pomegranate tree on the sidelines & you’ve got his son Jonathan out on the “dance-floor.” Basically what you have here is a “Mexican Stand-off.” King Saul was still waiting to “see what God would do.” Then Saul’s son Jonathon said to his young armor-bearer, “Let’s slip over to the other side & get a look at the enemy. Maybe we can move the needle on this thing and get it off dead center.”

 JONATHAN’S ACTION WAS IN FAITH, NOT AN ACT OF PRESUMPTION

He said, “It may be that the Lord will work for us.” He didn’t utter a big pronouncement that God had spoken to him & he had God’s word that they’d be successful. He said, “It may be that God will help us.” There are times for making public pronouncements of strong faith, but sometimes it's best not to trumpet loudly what we see & feel God is showing us. One sure way to lose credibility is to always be making big predictions about things that never pan out.

On the other hand, many people won’t make a move unless they experience a great emotional upheaval. They feel that unless God shakes their world or gives a great dream or revelation, it’s not time to move on a project.

But I like what Jonathan said & the attitude he had. “There’s a need, there’s an enemy out there mocking God & his people. The others are resting & waiting on God-knows-what; why don’t we just slip out of the camp & move closer to the enemy & it just may be that God will use us. God is so big He doesn’t need a great big army, He is able to do it with just us two, & He may do it. Let’s go put Him to the test.”

This idea of Jonathan’s came from the Lord. It worked for him as he & his armor bearer went up & fought the Philistines. They acted as guerrilla’s & slew 20 of the advanced guards of the garrison & the others panicked & ran. It was indeed a bold plan.

• Boldness can be called faith; with the provision that the Holy Spirit is around you & working in you.

Every couple of decades in the history of Israel you have episodes like this where the people would make the decision to follow God & amazing things would happen. You’d think stories like Jonathon’s would have been enough to bring them to the dance floor for the rest of their lives but it didn’t. It never did. There was always this tension, this ying-yang where they would pursue lives of glorious victory, then the next thing you know something would happen & they’d be back one the sidelines living in defeat again.

CONSIDER WITH ME SOME INITIATIVE SUFFOCATERS;


• THE MIRAGE SYNDROME.

If you’ve lived very long you are familiar with “the Mirage syndrome.” This syndrome plays itself out again & again in our lives. Because as Christians we are naturally hopeful people, we look forward with anticipation to our future. From a distance things can look so hopeful & bright. We can see in our mind's eye the great victories ahead, but often when we actually arrive & see up-close what looked so rosy from a distance, we’re disappointed. Life can be like that.

I can remember when I first started traveling as an evangelist. We would be invited to a church hundreds of miles away & the Pastor would write us telling about his church. As the time grew near we’d begin to picture the church in our minds. Youth & inexperience were also part of this syndrome. It may sound funny but I’d usually picture the church sitting up on a hill beautifully landscaped with grass & flowers. I’d imagine meeting the pastor & he’d always be slightly graying with an almost angelic smile on his face as he reached out to shake our hands & greet us. I’d see the room where we’d stay while there & picture it so beautifully appointed & comfortable. I’d then see in my mind the people & imagine how loving, supportive & friendly they’d be. I could go on but I think by now you have my point.

The passing of the years slowly taught us that these lovely “mirages” we conjured up in our minds were just that; they were mirages. While there were great men of God out there, great churches & sweet people, most of the time the reality was quite different than the mirage we constructed in our imaginations.

This often happens when missionaries go to the field for the first time, especially if they expect that because they are crossing an ocean, things will be somehow glossier. Usually the truth is the exact opposite. Some people look on the call of God as some kind of magical existence; & it is awesome if the individual has a true calling on their life. But ministry isn’t for the faint of heart. Many times I have prayed for the sick when my back was hurting so bad I could hardly stand up. Some might ask why I would pray for the sick with my back hurting & my answer is, “God heals the sick.” They may then say. “Well why didn’t he heal you?” Here’s the truth - “He has healed me, He is healing me & He will heal me in the future.”

When we are let-down & disillusioned by life a few times, the next step can be spiritual burn-out, unless we understand that in serving God, sometimes things happen we don’t & can’t understand. That’s where faith comes in. When we can explain & understand everything, we have no need for faith. Faith is what we hold on to when we don’t understand what’s going on. The truth is; “God never promised us a rose garden.”-[Sounds like another good song-title!] Without a balanced-faith outlook, we can grow weary of the dance-floor & suddenly the sidelines look safe, comfortable & alluring. Then it becomes easy to lose our initiative. If we’re not careful we’ll end up under a pomegranate tree letting life pass us by with nothing to do but look back in regret, wondering what it would have been like if we’d stayed engaged with life a little longer.

• FEAR AND DOUBT ARE INITIATIVE SUFFOCATERS.

In Leviticus 26:3-13 God relates to Israel the kinds of things he has for them & let’s them know His promises aren’t mirages but the real thing.

Listen;

If ye walk in my statutes & keep my commandments & do them, then I will give you rain in due season & the land shall yield her increase & the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach into the vintage & the vintage shall reach into the sowing time & ye shall eat your bread to the full & dwell in your land safely. And I will give you peace in the land & ye shall lie down & none shall make you afraid; & I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies & they shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect for you, & make you fruitful; & I will walk among you & I will be your God & ye shall be my people.

If God’s people could find the initiative to dwell with God, he would give them great things, not a mirage, but life beyond their imagination. In sending Jesus to the earth, God shows an “initiative deficient” people what initiative really looks like. Jesus took our long line of failures that haunt us & He took them to the cross with Him & was raised from the dead to give us all new life; Life on the “dance floor” with Him. If we want to “dance-in-life,” we only have to take His outstretched hand.

• JONATHAN AND HIS “NAMELESS ARMOR-BEARER”

I’d like to know more about Jonathan’s armor bearer but we’re not told his name. In the Bible there are lots of nameless hero’s, but one day I’m sure we’ll hear their names called aloud in the presence of God.

God seems to like to work by two. Look at Moses & Aaron, Saul &; Jonathan, Peter & John, Paul & Barnabas, Paul & Timothy, Paul & Silas, etc. The 70 were sent out two-by-two. God understands us & knows that none of us like to work alone. This is one reason marriage is such a wonderful thing. I’ll tell you this much; I’ll charge any army with my wife by my side but without her, my chances would be slim to none. One can put a thousand to flight but two can put ten-thousand to flight. I think it rather unnatural for us to want to face things in life totally alone.

Jonathan must have known that his armor-bearer’s faith was as strong as his own. We all need support from people of like precious faith. If Jonathon’s armor-bearer had been negative, he could have turned Jonathon back. If the armor-bearer was afraid of death he could have said, “Hey. Let’s be careful! Let’s not do something foolish! You know we didn’t tell the king about it, we have no back-up! They might kill us. Etc. etc. He would have turned Jonathon back & God wouldn’t have used them that day. You can easily see why Gideon let all the fearful men go home & only chose 300 to fight. Doubters can suck all the “spiritual oxygen” out of any room.

• Choose your companions carefully for they very well may be the difference between your success & failure.

We need people around us that will build our faith, not drag us down. I wouldn’t waste my time nor would I advise anyone else to waste theirs in a church that believed that the days of miracles are over. The Bible says that “Iron sharpens iron,” therefore we should choose carefully who we associate with.

Jonathon & his armor-bearer, operating as guerrilla’s, first slew the advanced guards then took the enemy garrison & put the whole Philistine host to flight, thousands of them.

God gave us this story for a reason. Jesus said, If two on earth shall agree as touching anything, it shall be done. One of worst things we can do as Christians is to isolate ourselves & think we can make it alone. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.

Peter didn’t tell the lame man –“look at me”, he said, “Look on us.”

• LOOK AT THE WORD INFLUENCE & YOU’LL FIND THE WORD “FLU” RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.

All of us have the flu, meaning influence. We may not have influence with a lot of folk but we all have some influence. When you look at this story you quickly see that Jonathan didn’t have a very large sphere of influence. Actually, when he left to go to battle, no one even knew he’d left. He had no position, authority or power. He was just a kid with a sword whom no one missed when he left. All he took with him was a kid who was another person no one missed. He was a younger kid to carry the stuff. Nobody would have given them a chance or thought that their single act of faith & courage would “influence” a whole nation.

Jonathan didn’t try to convince the army of six-hundred; he didn’t wake up his father & try to convince him. He knew he had no influence there so he just used the small influence he had & influenced his young helper. He said, “Hey, why don’t we go over there & see if we can pick a fight with those Hombres? Maybe God will give us the victory.” His armor-bearer said, “Go ahead & do what your heart & soul tell you to do,- I’ve got your back.”

That ladies and gentlemen is a picture of influence. Not position & power, but heart & soul. Many times we feel powerless to make a difference because we think the resources we have at our disposal aren’t big enough, strong enough, or good enough. We don’t have enough money or we don’t have the right connections or aren’t in the right position yet. And so we do nothing, believing we are powerless, when in truth God has placed all the people & resources we need right in front of us. Jonathon didn’t try to wield his authority; he just used his inspiration & influence.

Ask yourself who’s in your sphere of influence. Jonathan had one scrawny kid & a sword & God used them to route an army of thousands & change a nation from oppression to freedom. Just a little light shown in the right way & the darkness will flee.

Reread Matthew, Mark, Luke & John again & watch how Jesus used influence. Jesus seemed to shy away from titles & position & used relationships; very close relationships. Reread those books & watch how a ragtag group of fishermen were transformed & how they were influenced by one man & consequently changed the world.

• IN-FLU-ENCE IS CONTAGIOUS.

We are all “carriers” & will use our influence for good or ill. We make a choice each & every day what we’ll do with what we have.

Frankly I’d like to say that I’ve spent every moment of every day; every week, month & year of my life on the dance-floor. I can’t say that, & I won’t. But for each & every opportunity I’ve missed & for whatever reason I missed it, I grieve. And I know why I grieve. Because God didn’t create me to sit on the sidelines, He created me to dance. He took that great initiative 2,000 years ago & He’s just getting started. He’s still working on me. He’s still working to “take the lead” out of my feet & make me a more proficient dancer. After all, Moses didn’t really get started until he was 80.

I admit I’ve been caught under the pomegranate tree a few times but by His grace, no more. He graciously invites us & all we have to do is reach out & take His outstretched hand & go with Him to the dance-floor.

WILL YOU JOIN ME? WILL YOU LEAVE THE SIDELINES?

WE CAN GET OUT FROM UNDER THE POMEGRANATE TREE!

Blessings,


John