Worship Might Be Dancing in the Streets, or Something Else Too

We do these things in the dark, sometimes. Before our heart awakens, drumming against our chest. Then we know we are setting out into a new space—wide open space with God. We are made to love certain things. You may have an affinity for sewing, or singing, running, or keeping a calm head under pressure. You may love time by yourself to think, or maybe you just can't get enough of a crowd around you, the voices of others infusing you with energy and inspiration. Or, again, maybe you love both, sometimes. Because of the particular things you love to do, and the particular way in which you love to do them, you see the world differently from those around you. You have had unique experiences, wounds, life lessons, and adventures that no one else has. And for this reason, the way you worship God with your life is going to look different from anyone else. What does worship look like for you? What visual do you have in your mind when you even hear the word?

When I think of worship I think of David dancing, with exuberance and unselfconsciousness, before God.

David was unashamed. He was unreserved. He was all in and responded to the love he felt for his Father. He couldn't imagine holding anything back.

And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.  So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn (2 Samuel 6:14).

When David was criticized by Michal, Saul's daughter, for his impassioned dancing in the streets with the population, worshipping God and celebrating the return of the Ark of the Covenant, David responded with words to her that revealed not only his confidence in his actions, but his confidence in the truth of who he was, in the eyes of his Father.

It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will celebrate before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes (2 Samuel 6: 21-22).

"David danced with all his might," without reservation or hesitation. His heart responded to his love and praise for God, and he danced in the street, holding nothing back—without caring what he looked like to the skeptics.

I imagine this kind of worship is what makes us most alive, confident, joy-filled, and free.

We will displease some people with our worshipping, with our exuberant giving up our whole selves to worship God. And our worshipping doesn't necessarily mean dancing.  Most importantly, true worship is our responding to God's heart for us. True worship requires owning whom God has made us to be. It means caring more about realizing our true identity, in God, with our lives, rather than caring about the opinion of others. So, we must.

True worship is opposed by this world, a world with an enemy who doesn't want children of God to live their lives surrendered—to worship, to live like they believe.

Let's desire worshipping in the unique way God has made each of us to worship Him—exposed and alive and leaning into what we believe God has made us, right now, to do. Let's lift up our hands to Him, so grateful to be gathered together. We are made to do something amazing. We are made to worship God with our whole heart—in the way that no one else can ever do, in the way only you and I can do it.

What does worship look like, uniquely, for you?