The Dance

Life’s a dance you learn as you go, sometimes you lead sometimes you follow...are you a leader or do you tend to follow?  I feel like a follower.  I wait until I see something I want and then I jump on that bandwagon.  I have learned to be happy just to dance, sometimes it is to the music in my own head but it is still dancing.  I sway back and forth to the music called life.  Sometimes avoiding any involvement at all.  I just barely touch the edge of some peoples life and then others I feel like I am in up to my neck.  I don’t understand why we dance.  But we do.

“Life is a song, love is the music”

We write our own lyrics everyday as we go.  Somedays are happy songs, somedays sad, some are mad days while others are just reflective days.   This song popped in my head this evening:

“Where He leads me I will follow,

Where He leads me I will follow,

Where He leads me I will follow, 

I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way!”

Once again a follower.  When God talks to you do you always get it right away?  I sometimes can’t figure out what He is trying to tell me!  This week has been that way.  I feel like He is leading me in a different direction than what I am used to.  We are going down a path I haven’t traveled before.  I feel a little scared just because it is unknown to me but at the same time it is exciting.  I know in my heart if this new path is one I am to travel He will equip me.  I have been comfortable in my journey for way too long.  I can say this is coming as a total surprise to me because I feel like I am useful where I am at.  But can I be more useful doing something somewhere else?

John 4:24 (NIV)

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

If you worship God in that place of freedom and joy, you will see everything with a new perspective. You will see things that perhaps you didn’t see before.  It’s easier to see what God has willed for your life when you worship with Him.

“There will be times when the will of God will not be abundantly clear to us.  During those occasions we are expected to retain our faith and wait on the Lord”            Dr. James Dobson

Once again we are called to wait upon the Lord.  And while we wait…...we worship.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV)

7 For we live by faith, not by sight.

I don’t know about you, but I like to see where I am going.  I shine a light when it’s dark just so I can light my way.  I don’t like the dark.  I don’t fear it, but I don’t like it.  I don’t like the unknown.  Faith-stepping out in faith-is kind of like that darkness.  The difference is that God is there with us.  He is our big flashlight lighting the way.  He shines for us so that we can see the way ahead.  He goes before us.

Hebrews 13:8(NIV)

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

When I was a child at the very young age of 12, I was saved.  Mostly out of fear of going to Hell.  Not that I am proud of that but I was 12 and that’s how it was.  As I grew in age I also matured spiritually, as we all do.  We grow up.  But when we are spiritually young we want to be pleasing to our heavenly father.  We want to do what He wants us to do.  As we get older the line between right and wrong, good and bad, becomes harder and harder to distinguish.  And sometimes the things we have always done will all of the sudden seem wrong.  Gods mercy and grace allows us to mess up, to fall short and He catches us every time.  In all of lifes situations whether good or bad, happy or sad; all the places God takes us, He is giving us the chance to grow in faith.  We are maturing becoming the person He has designed us to be.  We have to go through the fire to be refined!

2 Corinthians 2:14(ESV)

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.

God is working on me.  He is trying his best to make me humble.

James 4:6 (NIV)

6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud

    but shows favor to the humble.”

I have a problem with self though.  No matter how hard I try “self” always gets in the way.

Hebrews 12:10(NIV)

10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.

I’m a mess.  A broken mess.  I mess up on a daily basis.  I say the wrong things to people.  I make wrong choices and I know I don’t set the best example for my kids.  My prayer on a daily basis is for me to decrease and Christ to increase.

Romans 5:3 (NIV)

3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

Broken.  Battered.  Bruised.  Tired.  Weary.  Maybe you don’t see this on the outside.  I like to put myself together...on the outside.  My hair has to be just right.  Makeup just right.  Clothes just right.  Shoes, oh my goodness, you can’t forget the shoes!  They have to match.  Then there is the jewelry and even down to the perfect perfume to finish it off.  You see, when I get up I see the real me.  The one that looks in the mirror and the tired defeated eyes look back.  I see the broken spirit and the weary soul.  So I begin to cover it up.  I put on a mask called makeup and bling.  So that the first thing someone sees is not my sadness or my weariness.  They have to go through a lof of layers to get to that.  The trouble with me is that I wear all of my emotions right there on my sleeve.  But God is helping me with all of that.  He wants me to remember.  I have to remember what He has done for me in the past.  He has carried me to mountain tops, through valleys that I never thought I would get through. When I drug my feet and they were so heavy I couldn’t move then, He scooped me up and just snuggled me up and carried me.  How could I ever forget that?  But those memories dim.  Everytime I encounter another hardship or a bump or pothole in the road of life I have to remember that I am not doing any of this.  My creator and Heavenly Father who loves me is doing this, all of this, for me.  He is doing it for my good.  He is shaping me, molding me.  Not to be a better nurse.  Not to get a raise in pay.  But to touch someone's life.  To make a difference in someones life along the way.  Maybe a word I say.  That one word that comes out of your mouth and you wonder….what the heck was that for?  There was purpose in it.  There are no coincidences,  only God instances.  When I start my day off with the attitude of “what are we going to do today?” my day is so much better.  My attitude is happy.  My steps are with a purpose.

Romans 15:13(NIV)

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want to overflow….I want to be contagious.  Working in the medical field that is not a word we like to see, but in this instance, I would love to be highly contagious and infectious.  I want to infect everyone I meet with the spirit of Jesus Christ.

We are a peculiar people.  Creatures of habit and I don’t understand sometimes why we do the things we do.   But God knows, he understands and He loves us anyway.  No matter how quirky we are, God loves us which brings me back to the dance.  Thats WHY we dance.  And whether you lead, follow or just stand in one spot...just dance and enjoy the life God created you for.  You were created in His image and He wants the best for you.  Use the gifts God gave you and learn how to dance.

Psalm 149:3a (NIV) Let them praise his name with dancing…

Psalm 30:11 (AMP)  You have turned my mourning into dancing for me...