Feature Presentation

I know a woman who cries every time she worships God. I used to think this was odd behavior for a grown woman. Sure, it’s okay to cry periodically, when the emotions are really high, but every time?

One day, though, it hit me. She is connecting with her Father. There is a uniting of heart, spirit, and mind. The love that she had for God flowed so greatly from her that all she could do was cry.

Many of you know that my wife, Karen, is pregnant with our first child. She is due in only seven weeks. Periodically, we will be at home together and Karen will want to watch those shows on TLC, you know…a dating story, a wedding story, a baby story. All those shows that guys immediately cringe when they see them.

Well, I’ll be honest with you. I cannot watch a Baby Story any more without crying. The emotions are running so high as I watch somebody else see their baby for the first time, that I can’t help myself.

I can only imagine how I am going to be the first time that I see my baby. I am going to be a mess. It is going to be a moment where I look down upon my child for the first time, and the love that I have for that baby is going to overwhelm me.

It will be a moment of union for father and child, a moment that will stand in eternity as one of the most amazing moments in my life. This is how God feels when we come to him in worship. He looks down upon us, and thinks that it is one of the most amazing moments of His life. John Ortberg would call it a “dee dah day moment.”

Let me explain…in his book “The Life You’ve Always Wanted,” John tells of a time that he was giving his three children a bath together…a custom that was designed to save him more time than anything else.

Johnny was still in the bathtub, Laura was out and safely in her pajamas, and he was trying to get Mallory dried off. Mallory was out of the water, but was doing what has become known in his family as the Dee Dah Day dance. This consists of her running around and around in circles, singing over and over again, “Dee dah day, dee dah day” – a simple dance expressing great joy.

When she is too happy to hold it in any longer, when words are inadequate to give voice to her euphoria, she has to dance to release her joy. So she does the Dee Dah Day.

However, John was irritated that particular evening. “Mallory, hurry!” he prodded. So she did – she began running in circles faster and faster and chanting “dee dah day” more rapidly. “No, Mallory, that’s not what I mean! Stop with the dee dah day stuff, and get over here so I can dry you off. Hurry!”

Then she asked him a profound question: “Why?”

He had no answer. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no meetings to attend. He was just so used to hurrying, so preoccupied with his own little agenda, so trapped in this rut of moving from one task to another, that here was his life, here was his joy, here was an invitation to the dance right in front of him – and he was missing it.

So he did the only thing he could do – He danced.

We each have an invitation to the dance, yet we often come to worship with other things on our minds. Lunch plans we’ve made, projects we need to complete, a phone call we forgot to make…barriers that distract us and keep us from truly connecting with God.