I grew up in a non-dancing house. My Dad was a conservative Baptist Pastor in Bakersfield, California and we just didn’t dance. As a matter of fact, though my Dad never preached against dancing I somehow new that dancing was right up there with murder, robbing a bank, and, well, you name it, dancing was a BIG one!
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I ever even thought much about dancing. I never wanted to go “clubbing” and I had no desire at all to dance, until I met Terrie. It was our honeymoon. We were at the Madonna Inn near San Luis Obispo. It was dinner time and we were seated near the dance floor. There was a pianist playing the piano and no one on the dance floor. Terrie looked at me with those “you’d better ask your wife to dance” eyes and I knew if I was going to enjoy the next 50 years of my life I’d better ask. So I did.
It was wonderful. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but it didn’t matter. The closeness, the intimacy, the trust and, I guess, abandon was something I had never experienced before. I loved dancing with my wife. Obviously, I will never forget that evening.
The next time I danced was with Promise Anne, my first daughter. She was just a baby and we would hold each other and “dance around the room” (sort of “King and I” style”). “Shall we dance…around the room…shall we dance…”. She loved it and so did I. It was the same for my other daughters. [Benji and I never danced – we would just do “head butts”. He was a pretty tough kid!]
Dancing with my daughters and them dancing with their father was pretty special. There was intimacy, trust, connection and, yes, abandon.
It’s interesting that there is quite a bit of dancing in the Bible, and most of it is good! My two favorite passages concerning dancing are found in First Samuel and the Psalms.
In Samuel King David dances before the Lord in praise as the Ark was brought to Jerusalem. As the symbol of God’s presence entered the city David put on his dancing shorts and headed into the streets, jumping, shouting, twirling in great joy. (That’s what the word dance means by the way – to twirl in great joy.)
The very last Psalm, Psalm 150:4 literally commands us to dance. “Praise him with the tambourine and dancing”.
God loves it when we dance. No, not the sensual, lusty stuff that passes for dancing on TV and stage. God is not at all interested in our “FAME” appeal. God loves it when we trust Him completely, connect with Him as He desires, draw close to Him and, yes, dance with Him with abandon!
There’s a problem though, many of us are afraid to Dance with the Father. Whether they ever meant to or not, our earthly fathers let us down. And our view of our Heavenly Father is drastically affected by our experiences with our earthly fathers.
If our earthly father was distant, we assume our Heavenly Father is far away.
If our early father was unreasonable and over demanding, we assume our Heavenly Father is unreasonable and demanding.
If our earthly father disconnected/distant we have a view of God who is unconcerned, unattached, far-removed from our lives.
And if you had a father who, no matter what you did – it was never good enough – you will assume that God the Father will never be pleased with you. The guilt, shame, hurt of your past will never be relieved.
We have grown to be afraid to dance with our Heavenly Father. Intimacy, trust, connection are ideas that just don’t seem to fit us and God. Forget abandon!
A research project was completed years ago studying the 50 most famous atheistic thinkers on our age. Do you know the one thing they all has in common? They all hated their Dads. If you have a bad view of your earthly father you are going to have a rough time relating to your Heavenly Father. [adapted]
So what’s the solution? What’s the good news?
The good news is that you still can dance with the Father. You still can enjoy connection, intimacy, trust and abandon with the One who created you. It’s doable!
All it takes is relearning what your Heavenly Father is really like. I call it the process of “re-fathering”. In other words, learning again (or for the first time) what it means to have a LOVING, CARING, CONSISTENT and CAPABLE Father.
We can dance with the Father – we just have to re-learn what kind of Father we actually have
WE CAN DANCE WITH THE FATHER BECAUSE HE REALLY CARES
He is concerned about you.
Psalm 103:13-15 says, “The LORD is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he understands how weak we are”.
Tender and compassionate, the Hebrew for those two words is actually just one word. It carries the idea of a father bringing his child close to him when he hurts. Cuddling and caring when the child hurts.
The point of the verse: God really cares for you! He cares more than you will ever know. Jesus tells us that He cares so much that He keeps track of the number of hairs on your head. (Matthew 10:30)
We can’t even begin to comprehend the depth of God’s care, God’s compassion for us. As one pastor stated, it’s like an ant trying to comprehend a human. The ant simply does not have the mental capacity to get it. How can we ever comprehend that the Creator of the entire universe cares enough to be concerned about our littlest of problems.
Our problem is that we don’t want to dance: we want to dump!
There was an event in the life of Jesus when he got into a boat with His disciples. He told them to cross over the Sea of Galilee to the other side, then he laid down in the bottom of the boat and took a nap. But before long a sudden storm hit the sea and the boat began to shake, wave began to crash against the side of the little vessel. The disciples were afraid. More than afraid, they were astonished that – even in the midst of the storm – Jesus was fast asleep.
“Frantically they woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you even care that we are going to drown?” (Mark 4:38)
Did you get that? “don’t you even care”? Of course, their biggest mistake was thinking that the boat could actually sink! Remember this – your boat will never sink when Jesus is in it! It might take on a little water, but it will never sink!
“don’t you even care”? They were afraid and they started dumping on God! “You don’t even care!”
That’s the real gist of the matter. When we worry we assume God doesn’t care!
But the New Testament reminds us, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.” (1 Peter 5:7)
He cares about you! He cares about your job. He cares about your family. He cares about that fight you had with your kids or your spouse. He cares about the things that worry you. He cares about the things that frustrate you. He cares. It would actually be easier to list what He doesn’t care about – is there anything He doesn’t care about – NO. That chapter would be blank!
You can dance with the Father because He cares…He wants to dance with you!
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you.”
Not only does our Heavenly Father care, but He is always there!
WE CAN DANCE WITH THE FATHER BECAUSE HE IS ALWAYS THERE.
God tells us in Deuteronomy chapter 31, “I will never leave you; I will never forget you.” That promise was so important to God that He repeats it in the New Testament,
“I will never leave you; I will never forget you.” (Hebrews 13:5).
The point, our Heavenly Father is always there! Actually, He’s always here!
Psalm 121:3 says it this way: “He will not let you stumble and fall”.
Our Heavenly Father is right here and He will keep you from falling.
The little book of Jude 24 says, “all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling”.
Our earthly fathers eventually will let us down. It’s hard to be consistent as a parent, isn’t it? People change. Things change. But there is one constant: our Heavenly Father. He never changes. 2 Timothy 2:13 says: “If we are unfaithful, God remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”
Don’t you just hate it when our kids pull the “promise thing” on us? “But you promised!...” We try to keep our promises, we try to be consistent, but even at our very best we are inconsistent at time; not our Heavenly Father. “God never changes his mind about the people he calls and the things he gives them.” (Romans 11:29 NCV)
You can dance with the Father because He will always be there for you – He doesn’t change, He doesn’t give up.
You make feel like I do at times. You may wonder how God can even put up with you when you fail to follow through with His will. God is simply waiting for you to let Him take the lead again. Learn to dance with the Father. Let Him take the lead!
You can dance with the Father. You can dance with the Father because He cares. You can dance with the Father because He’s always there to take the lead. And...
YOU CAN DANCE WITH THE FATHER BECAUSE HE WILL ALWAYS COME THROUGH!
He cares. He’s there. And He can!
When my kids were little they actually thought I could do anything. They thought I knew everything.
It reminds me of the little boy who asked his dad, “Dad, do you know everything.” “Yes,” the father replied, “I know everything about some things.”.
Well, I don’t even know everything about some things! But God knows everything. Not only does He know everything; he has the power to do ANYTHING!
The best part about connecting with God, trusting God, growing close to God, is that I can give Him everything that worries me and He will take care of it! I can abandon all of my cares, hopes, desires, everything and He will take care of it. I can give myself totally over to His purposes for my life knowing that He has the power to accomplish whatever He chooses in my life.
Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes.”
Luke 1:37 reminds us, “For nothing is impossible with God.”
Have a habit you can’t break and worry that God has given up on you? – nothing is impossible with God.
Struggling in a relationship and can’t seem to come to resolution? – nothing is impossible with God.
Stuck in your spiritual journey and don’t have a clue how to take the next step? – nothing is impossible with God.
How is it that we assume God can’t handle our problems, but we can?
Sometimes we miss the joy of dancing with the Father because we simply won’t join Him in the process. He’s there. He cares – and He can. He has the power to fix anything in your life if you will turn yourself over to His control.
I’ve never been to a formal dance. I’ve only danced with Terrie and my girls. Frankly, I have no desire to dance with anyone else here on this earth. But I do want to dance with my Heavenly Father.
I’ve never been to a dance, but I’ve seen a few in movies and I always get a kick out of the line, “Excuse me, may I have this dance?”
I picture our Father in Heaven standing patiently, waiting for us, saying something similar,
“May I have this dance?”
You need to be aware of a very important truth. You can’t dance with the Father until He is your Father. Not everyone is a child of God. He is the Heavenly Father, but He is not everyone’s “Father”.
He created us, but it takes relationship for Him to be our Father. It’s one thing to do the biology that creates a child, it’s quite another to be a Father. God created you – now He wants to be your Father.
Pastor Tom Holladay* tells the story meeting a young woman who had grown up in a home with a mentally ill father. He was heartless, hurtful, and abusive. If that wasn’t enough, in his mental state, her father killed her mother taking away the one caring parent she had. Later this young woman came to know Jesus Christ and began a personal relationship with Him. She talked gratefully of her loving Heavenly Father.
Tom asked her, How did you ever come to the point where you could accept your Heavenly Father when you had such a terrible example of an earthly father?
The young woman’s answer was profound, “My earthly father took away from me something no one deserved to have taken away. But my Heavenly Father gave me something that no one deserves to ever have given to them: His own Son, Jesus, who died on a cross so that I could have grace to live eternally.” [adapted]
God the Father wants to begin a lifelong dance with you. He cares. He’s always there. He can accomplish in your life whatever needs to be accomplished.
This sermon may be accessed at
http://churchforfamily.com/Sermons/DanceWithTheFather.htm
