I saw a message from our business coaches recently, titled “My Dance With God”, and I knew I had to write about this for my life as well. When we pursue our calling to make an amazing impact in the world, we engage in a work that is much bigger than ourself. This work is God sized, and pursuing this work results in a dance with God.
Perhaps you don’t have a relationship with God. If this is you, you can still pursue your calling. You can still make an amazing impact in the world. And I believe that on some level, you will be engaging with God, even if you don’t perceive it.
Dancing
In a dance, one of the dance partners is leading while the other is following. But both partners are dancing. This is what it should look like when we dance with God. God should be leading, and both of us (God and us) should be dancing. It’s not all me (dancing separate from God), and it’s not all God (with me sitting on the sidelines).
Often I get this simple concept all out of whack. Sometimes I’ve lost touch with God’s leading in my life, and I’m dancing by myself. Other times, I’m resisting the dance. I’m asking God to dance for me, but He refuses to control me that way.
I’ve experienced several stages in my dance with God that I want to share with you.
The Invitation
The first stage is the invitation. God invites us to join Him in His dance. To perceive the invitation that is coming from God, it is best if we have a relationship with Him. God is not an idea. God is a person, and He wants to have a relationship with us that is real and personal.
On a practical level, this dance is where you are fulfilling your purpose, making an impact in people’s lives. God has wired you up for a specific purpose. When you start living life true to this purpose, you are responding to God’s invitation to dance.
It has taken me many years to really respond to this invitation. I have been a Christian for pretty much all of my life, but I haven’t fully engaged in the dance with God until recently. I had a few starts in the dance when I lead youth and young adult ministries many years ago, but that stopped.
My heart attack in 2005, was an invitation to re-engage in the dance.
Beginning Dance
The next stage is to begin the dance. This stage is very awkward – especially if we are new to dancing with God. We misstep. We zig when we should zag. We get concerned with how we look, and we worry what people will think.
We might even start out dancing the wrong dance. We’re trying to Boogie, when God is leading us to Waltz.
This stage of dancing involves the most learning. Actually that’s a bit of an understatement. This stage of the dance messes with us. All our weird stuff starts to come up. Our fears manifest. We find ourself trying to be lead by God all the while still seeking approval from others. Our ideas about God are challenged. We try to lead the dance instead of letting God lead. Or we try to make God dance for us.
In my life, I keep revisiting this stage. Our business coaches, tell us that this is normal (shew!). I’ve done more personal growth in the last 6 years than in my previous 40 – most of it has been in the last 3 years. I’ve had to rethink what commitment means. I’ve had to stop worrying about what others think. I’ve had to connect to my heart. I’ve had to rethink the role of money in my life. I’ve had to quit my habit of being judgmental.
This stage is really stretchy and uncomfortable. The main reason for all this is that as much as God wants us to see results in our life, He is even more interested in who we become. I now show up as a different person. Without saying a word, people often notice a difference just when I walk into a room.
Advanced Dance
This stage in a sense isn’t a distinct stage from the previous stage. In our dance with God, we switch back and forth between beginning dance, and advanced. We get a part of the dance down, and then we get to focus on other parts of the dance. Often, God challenges us to dance more advanced dances once we get here, and we get to go back to beginning dance again.
Advanced dance is where things are flowing. There is a grace and ease to our dance. God and us, we’re both Waltzing. We’re zigging together. We’re zagging together. We’ve reached a certain level of trust in each other. He is leading, and we are following gracefully.
In my life, there are a few areas where I’ve reached this level. For example, when I am coaching someone, I am fully present with them. I am listening to them. I am reflecting. I am asking questions. And I am listening for intuition (us Christian folks might call this the Holy Spirit).
Frequently, when I receive an intuitive hit, I will tentatively ask the person if there’s any truth to it, and often the person will say something like, “Oh man! That just hit me like a ton of bricks. How did you know?” This type of “holding space” for people comes much more easily for me now. Earlier in my life, this wasn’t even on my radar.
For those of us who are impatient, advanced dance only comes after we get through beginning dance.
So, these are the stages of our dance with God as I’ve experienced them.
Now it’s your turn. I invite you to engage in your dance with God. Next time, I will share a way that you can take your next/first steps.
