God is a DANCER!
By Myron Abernathy
(originally posted on
Facebook on Tuesday, July 22 2008)
When I meditated on the word Guidance, I kept seeing "dance" at the end of the word. I remember reading that doing God's will is a lot like dancing. When two people try to lead, nothing feels right. The movement doesn't flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky. When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead, both bodies begin to flow with the music. One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back or by pressing lightly in one direction or another. It's as if two become one body, moving beautifully. The dance takes surrender, willingness, and attentiveness from one person and gentle guidance and skill from the other. My eyes drew back to the word Guidance. When I saw “G”: I thought of God, followed by “u”, and “I”. “God”, “u”, “I” and “dance.” God, you, and I dance. As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust that I would get guidance about my life. Once again, I became willing to let God lead.
I received this excerpt in an email a few years back. Normally, I tend to ignore and delete religious emails, either because I keep seeing the same ones over and over again, and or they’re the clichéd “you must forward this to x amount of people if you truly love God” types. However, for reasons all too obvious to those who know me well, this particular message hit me right in the heart. I’ve been dancing salsa for almost 6 years now, and along with having been a disciple of Jesus for almost 8, I’ve been able to see just how much dancing relates to having a relationship with God.
I’ve also noticed that, in many ways, partner dancing is similar to having a relationship with another person. As a dance instructor, I often use the analogy that salsa dancing, or any partner dance for that matter, is like being in a 3-5 minute relationship. As with any relationship, communication is of the utmost importance, but the kicker is that none of the communication is verbal; it’s all physical. And as the passage above states, two people cannot lead a dance, or a relationship, otherwise it will turn into a “hot mess” in no time flat. In a relationship with God, he is obviously the leader. So, who leads in a romantic relationship between a man and a woman? Who leads when two people share a dance? I don’t think it’s any coincidence that a man leads in both dancing and in relationships (well, in Godly relationships, anyway). I’ve realized that there are countless parallels between our daily walk with God, a Godly relationship between a man and a woman, and the rules (written and unwritten) for partner dancing. The more I think about this concept, the more I am amazed by how deep it all goes, and I’ve come to the conclusion that God had to have planned it all. It makes too much sense. Let’s take a look at a few scriptures that will give us some insight into one of God’s beautiful and well-planned designs.
Ephesians 5:22-30, 33 For as long as I can remember, this scripture has always been a very touchy subject, especially in our culture here in the US. Whenever it is used in a sermon, it seems to touch a nerve with the women in the room, and you’re bound to hear a few resounding shouts of “AMEN!” from the men. However, I think this is due to a lack of understanding and deep study of this scripture. Let’s take a deeper look into the scripture to see what it’s really saying…
Most of us are more familiar with verses 22-24, which state that a woman should submit to her husband, since the husband is the head of the wife. Many people tend to stop at that point, which is why I can understand why women have a hard time with this scripture. However, if we continue to read through to verse 30, things get a bit more interesting. The husband is called to follow the example of Jesus, who is the head of the Church, just like the husband is the head of his wife. Jesus gave himself up for the church, serving it, making it perfect and blameless, washing it clean, and, ultimately, dying for it. The scripture calls for husbands to love their wives as they love themselves. If a man loves himself, as all human beings should, he gives himself the best, makes sure he is well taken care of, makes sure he is safe and secure, so on and so forth. So if he loves his wife as he does himself, he will do the same for her as well. Not to take anything away from the woman’s role to submit to a man, as submitting to another person is no easy task, regardless of your gender, I think it is safe to say that God is calling the men higher than he is the women at this point. We all know that to whom much is given, much is also expected of. If a man is given a woman who is fully submitted to him, which is of much value and of much responsibility, he is expected to take extremely good care of her.
Now that we know what the man in a relationship is supposed to do, it gives a completely different light to the woman’s obligation to submit. Again, regardless of being a man or a woman, many of us would find it difficult to submit to another. However, wouldn’t we be more inclined, dare I say even happy, to submit to someone if we knew that said person had our best interests in mind and would always care of provide for, and take care of us? I think most women would be a lot more at ease about submitting to their significant others if they understood this scripture and most men would have a lot of praying to do in order to “man up” to their responsibility. (Note: I say significant other and not just husbands here. No, the Bible does not mention boyfriends and girlfriends, but let’s be real here: If you cannot submit to your boyfriend or love your girlfriend as yourself, what makes one think a switch can be flipped on once the marriage vows are said?) It is worth noting that there are no conditions set in this scripture. The Bible does not say that the man is excused from loving his wife as himself if she does not submit, nor does it excuse a woman from submitting if her husband does not do his part. If either person is a servant of God, he or she carries these commands out in obedience to him, not out of obligation to the significant other.
Those of you who are reading this who have any sort of dancing experience have probably already made the connection here, but for those who haven’t, allow me to break it down. In any partner dance, the woman, aside from her basic step and any styling she might do, gives complete control to the man that she’s dancing with, and follows his lead. In a nutshell, if he didn’t lead it, she doesn’t do it. It takes a lot of humility and trust to do this, just as it would in a relationship. And just like in a relationship, a lot is expected of the man who is leading. He has to give her clear, precise, and consistent signals so that she can follow him correctly, and so that she will not be confused. After all, she has no idea what move is coming next. He has to lead her in a way that will make her confident that he “has her back” and will take care of her, and that he will not put her in harm’s way. The dancefloor can be quite dangerous sometimes, as many of my fellow salseros can testify to. If the woman does not get this impression from the man she is following, she will be highly reluctant to follow anything that he leads. I teach my male salsa students to imitate me, being a perfect gentleman on the dancefloor. I have a conviction that, outside of the inevitable accident that will happen from time to time, no one gets hurt during a dance with me. Most women who dance will appreciate a man having this mentality, and will be more inclined to follow him, even if he isn’t the best dancer skill-wise. Also, relating to a portion of verse 27, just as Jesus will present his church as radiant and without stain, wrinkle, or blemish, the man’s job in a partner dance is to make his lady look good above all else. It is often said that in ballroom dancing, the woman is the picture, and the man is the frame. The job of a frame is to hold up the picture so that everyone can see how beautiful it is. No one should ever have to say, “Wow, that picture looks busted, but the frame sure is nice.” I know women in the salsa scene often complain about men who seem to only care about making themselves look good instead of catering to them, and rightfully so. If this was the purpose, there would be no need for a “partner.”
So, how can we relate this to our personal relationship with God? As I stated earlier, God is ultimately the leader in any relationship between him and one of his creations. So in this case, all of us, men and women, are the “woman” (figuratively, of course) and God is the man. God takes care of us, provides for us, and keeps us safe. He used his son Jesus to cleanse us of our sins that would otherwise make us imperfect, therefore making us perfect and blameless in his eyes. We are called to fully submit to him and follow his lead.
Another scripture that closely relates to this is
Hebrews 13:17. This scripture talks about obeying and submitting to those who have authority over you or lead you. Even though the Bible does not give us a loophole to get out of the responsibilities mentioned in Ephesians, God still knows that we are all imperfect humans who will fall short of his will. Just as a woman will have a hard time submitting to a man who does not make her feel secure in his leadership, a man will likewise have a difficulty leading a woman who is always giving him a hard time. This scripture says that those who follow should not be a burden unto those who lead them, as it will not benefit them. Though a man should deny himself anyway, he will have a hard time fully loving and caring for someone who is always disrespectful of him. Likewise, the woman in that situation will not reap the benefits of a man who is trying to love her as himself, because she herself is becoming a stumbling block in the way of his efforts.
In the dancing aspect of this, a man, regardless of his skill as a leader, will have a hard time leading his partner if she is making it hard on him. He cannot lead her well if she is always fighting his lead, doing things on her own, making him support all her weight… I could go on and on about the lags in technique that can be a thorn in a leader’s side in dancing. I teach my students that there is a mutual give-and-take here: A leader should make it easy for his lady to follow him, and a follower should make it easy for her man to lead her. Even though the passage I referenced above in Ephesians does not say verbatim that a man should make it easy for his wife to follow him, that is essentially what he is doing by loving her as himself. I believe the scripture in Hebrews applies the same to women, whether she is married to a man or dancing with a man.
Again, let’s bring this back to God. The scripture in Hebrews 13, though we can relate it to our relationships with one another and to dancing, specifically speaks upon our relationships with our leaders. Those of us who are following God most likely have someone in our church who has been appointed to lead us. God calls us to obey them and submit to them, not because of who they are, but because God designated them as our leaders. Romans 13:1 assures that if anyone has authority over us, be it religious leaders or political leaders, God is the one who gave them that authority or allowed them to have it. Now, it is true that some leaders abuse said authority, but that does not give us license to rebel against it. Again, although we may think it will at times, it would be of no benefit to us to give our leaders a hard time. Quite the opposite; being disrespectful to our leaders is actually disrespecting God, since his authority is the authority that gave them their authority in the first place.
Here’s another interesting scripture that we can apply to all three concepts of relationships, dancing, and God.
Genesis 15 & 16 tells a story that many of us are familiar with. Abraham, known then as Abram, and Sarah, known then as Sarai, were both in old age, well past the age of being able to have children. Yet, God came to Abraham and promised that he would have a son, and that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars. Apparently, Sarah found it hard to believe that she would be the one to bear a son to Abraham, so she volunteered her maidservant to have their child instead. This lead to what may be the first recorded case of “baby momma drama”, as Sarah became resentful of her maidservant once she became pregnant. Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant, was eventually driven away from the family.
So, what can we gain from this? Obviously, since a man having multiple wives was acceptable in the culture at that time, it doesn’t really relate to us on the relationship aspect, aside from the fact that it shows just a few of the negative side effects of a man being involved with more than one woman, regardless if any of the people involved decline to recognize it as “cheating.” So let’s take a look at the spiritual aspect of this passage. Ultimately, in convincing Abraham to have a child by Hagar instead of herself, Sarah made moves that went outside of God’s plan. God did not specifically tell her to substitute Hagar for herself. In fact, it was Abraham whom God spoke directly to, not her, so she intervened on instructions that were not even addressed to her. Even though God’s promise was still fulfilled (proving once again that God’s will shall always be done), her actions were not without consequence. We already saw that this lead to the decline of her relationship with Hagar, but in studying a few books of the Old Testament beyond this, we see that the races that came from Hagar’s son, Ishmael, and Sarah’s son, Isaac, would feud with each other for many generations to come. This shows what can happen when we decide to deviate from God’s plan for us, acting on our own wisdom instead of his. In our doing so, we subconsciously say something to the effect of “I’m going to help God out here” or “I know better than God.” Our actions may not always have such severe repercussions as Sarah’s did, but they will always be detrimental to us in some form or fashion.
This reminds me of what can happen in any genre of partner dancing when the woman does not follow the man’s lead. Sometimes the woman unintentionally misinterprets the man’s lead and does a move that he did not plan for (this is assuming, of course, that the man lead it correctly). The woman may also incorrectly anticipate what is coming, saying to herself, “Oh, I’ve seen this before, I know what he’s about to do”, but the man decides take the move in a completely different direction. Sometimes a woman, either due to lack of skill in following or being completely unwilling to follow, does a move entirely on her own, outside of the man’s lead. Still, at other times, a woman may anticipate the next move and actually anticipate correctly, but she does not wait for the man’s signal. These are situations that may be all too familiar to my fellow salseros reading this (some of the guys are probably saying “amen!” right now). The results of not following correctly will vary. It can result to something as miniscule as missing the beat or a botched move. In either case, both people involved should (key word, should) just laugh or smile about it and keep dancing. However, as I stated earlier, dancefloors can prove to be dangerous territory, especially in a crowd of people who have no desire to be considerate of others around them. This is where the man’s responsibility to protect his partner comes into play, but it will be difficult to do this if said partner does not wait for his lead, and or does not follow it correctly.
Since dancing is a lot like being in a romantic relationship, the same can happen there. An aggressive woman may decide to initiate an exclusive relationship herself instead of waiting for the man in question to do so.
Proverbs 18:22 and
Proverbs 31:10 come to mind here. Notice that in both scriptures, it sates that a wife is found, meaning that the husband is the one doing the finding and pursuing. Again, some may try to exclude boyfriends and girlfriends from this, but even if a man asks a woman to marry him, she still essentially found him if she started the initial relationship. I say these things against my own pride, as a younger and less mature version of me would have completely disagreed with what those scriptures said, as well as what I’ve said in relation to them. Before I began to follow Jesus, I used to think it was so unfair that men would traditionally do all the pursuing. I would have loved for a woman to pursue me instead. (Take it into consideration, though, that I am shy, timid, and lazy by nature, so the Godless version of me would have enjoyed such a situation) However, God’s wisdom and life experiences (my own and others’) have helped me to see that this is not how he planned things. For instance, since I’ve been a Christian, every time I’ve had the impression that a woman was being too forward with me or being aggressive with me, (regardless if my gut feeling was correct or not) I was actually turned off , much to my surprise. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate a well-placed gesture or signal from a woman that I’m interested in, more or less giving me the “green light” to start or continue pursuing, but anything more than that seems a bit out of place at the least.
Also, I’m sure we’ve all witnessed, whether in our own lives, other’s lives, TV sitcoms or movies, situations where a man and a woman involved in a relationship have two conflicting ideas about the status of the relationship. A woman may brag to her friends and family about a guy who she thinks is “the one”, when in actuality, the guy is still thinking they’re on the “just kickin’ it” stage, or he likes her but doesn’t want to move too fast. She is then upset and embarrassed to find out how he really feels, even though he hasn’t given her reason enough to believe that the relationship is where she thinks it is. It may, on the other hand, be that the guy is being irresponsible, allowing the woman to think that the relationship is going somewhere when he has no intentions of taking it that far. Regardless of whether it’s the woman going past where the man has lead the relationship, or if the man fails to do right by her and lead her properly (making sure she is clear about his intentions), it always leads to some sort of drama, heartache, heartbreak, etc.
In conclusion, we’ve seen in many ways how God’s plan of leading and following effects our everyday lives, whether we are following him in our Christian lives, committing to another person in a relationship under his guidance, or just having fun “cutting some rug.” God either causes or allows everything to happen for a reason, so I believe once again that it is not a coincidence that these concepts blend together so well. I also believe that God is a wonderful dancer and is excited about dancing with each and every one of us every day of our lives, as you will see in this closing excerpt (writer unknown):
Imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord's footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace.
But your footprints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures, and returns.
For much of the way, it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord's, soon paralleling his consistently.
You and Jesus are walking as true friends!
This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: Your footprints that once etched the sand next to Jesus' are now walking precisely in His steps.
Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones, you and Jesus are becoming one.
This goes on for many miles, but gradually you notice another change. The footprints inside the large footprints seem to grow larger.
Eventually they disappear altogether. There is only one set of footprints they have become one.
This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse! Zigzags all over the place. Stops. Starts. Gashes in the sand. A variable mess of prints.
You are amazed and shocked.
Your dream ends. Now you pray:
"Lord, I understand the first scene, with zigzags and fits. I was a New Christian; I was just learning. But you walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with you."
"That is correct."
"And when the smaller footprints were inside of yours, I was actually learning to walk in your steps , following you very closely."
"Very good.. You have understood everything so far."
When the smaller footprints grew and filled in yours, I suppose that I was becoming like you in every way."
"Precisely."
"So, Lord, was there a regression or something? The footprints separated, and this time it was worse than at first."
There is a pause as the Lord answers, with a smile in his voice.
"You didn't know? It was then that we danced!"
