Dancing in step with the Father

 I didn’t know a thing. Well, may be a little. I could move from side to side to a beat but things were a little different here. I had to follow certain steps, count, turn a particular way etc.

I enjoy dance, music… I wasn’t a slow learner (I think); I picked things up fairly fast. I guess generally my moves were not that bad either…. But there was one thing. Just one thing that took me longer to grasp.

“Follow my lead!” He had to remind me over and over. 

Gosh was that hard. I presume my 2 instructors were stretched to new levels of patience as I tried to tame “my own way” syndrome. So many times I almost badly hurt myself, stepped my instructors toes, and so on – usually because I was not following his lead.

I wanted to know where I was going, what was next and go there myself…it was difficult to let someone else just swing me wherever, however and whenever they deemed fit. Often times I assumed I knew what we were doing next. So I’d think to myself, “oh we are turning right” and yet the lead intended left. And bam! Suddenly you are an acrobat; with your arms twisted in directions you never thought possible. The pain, meanwhile…ho! Then he does a “dip” but you’re so afraid, you resist it… before you know it you’re laying flat on the floor anyway.

When I finally got better at putting down ‘my way,’ learnt to TRUST my leader, learnt to submit to his plan for the dance… oh!!! The fun, the enjoyment, the gracefulness, the bliss, the looking forward to the dips and all… I can’t even begin to describe it. Manya, you even begin to look like a pro, kumbe!

A lot of times we are like that with our Father. We want to go our own way, do things the way WE think they should be done, live our lives according to our flips and turns and not His, constantly afraid to fully place our confidence and trust in Him, 'bossing' Him around (mbu) instead of simply following His lead, making our own plans and never 'consulting' Him, expecting Him to nurse our “broken limbs” yet we twisted them turning our own “smart” way… oblivious to the joy, freedom and ease that is found in trusting and allowing His way to work in our lives.

It’s quite the journey and we have an instructor, our teacher (the Holy Spirit). We have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses because He was in all points tempted as we are, yet did not sin. We have a God who knows how our life’s dance ends, unfolds even before it begins. We have a Father whose splendor we can share and display to all of creation by simply following His lead; turning at His turn, flipping at His flip, swaying at His sway, spinning at His spin.

May we allow Him to teach us how to glide across the dance floor. May we daily choose surrender. May we dance so beautifully and all the way to that final feast.

Prov 16:9, Ps 32:8-9