May I have this dance?

As a pastor, I seldom experience intimacy with God when I have some sort of leadership role to play in the Sunday service. I do feel the unction or prompting of God whilst leading or preaching. But it is not the sort of experience of God that provides for my needs. I suppose that is because God is providing me with something to pass on. So I usually feel the touch of God to meet personal needs during private times of worship or when I am visiting another church in sheep’s clothing!

Last Sunday, however, was different, and I am writing about it because I was taken aback by the gentleness and poignancy of God’s touch and also by His ability to choreograph many people in what turned out to be a complex “dance” with none of the parties knowing what the others were about to do or how each part would contribute to the whole.

The “dance” began as I sought God for a sermon topic last week. It seemed right to do one last sermon on the topic of stewarding hardship. Telling Dave and Chrissie alone, I prepared a sermon on psalm 84, which teaches us how to build trust in God. My main reason for focusing on trust as an essential aid to negotiating trials came from Isaiah 26:3&4: “3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD , the LORD , is the Rock eternal.”

Trust keeps us safely established on the unshakeable foundation of God’s love and provision. It is when we lack trust that peace evaporates, and we begin making unholy alliances.

So much for the background; let us turn now to Sunday morning. During a time of prayer before the service, one of the musicians saw a picture. It was of a dark menacing cloud, hanging low over the congregation. Then, suddenly, the cloud began to dissipate, allowing the sun to shine through and bathe everyone with warmth and light. The first I heard about the picture was when the musician explained to the congregation that she thought many people in Harvest were still under a “cloud” and that God wanted to break through and give them relief. “So”, I thought to myself, “there are still people under the cosh, and God wants to deal with that”. I was on the right track with the sermon topic!

Then another musician came up to the microphone. God had reminded him of the story of King Jehoshaphat who had overcome a mighty invasion simply through worship (2 Ch. 20). God, he said, wanted to remind us that worship is one of the keys to victory. Now I was starting to get excited! That was one of the main points of the sermon: we build trust by seeing our trials as pathways to worship.

By the end of praise and worship, I was bursting to read psalm 84, but I couldn’t see a Bible on the stage. I thought to myself, “Lord, wouldn’t it be cool if you got somebody else to read psalm 84”. At that precise moment, someone walked up to the mic and started reading, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty...” It was psalm 84! Already, I was in tears. But, to top it all, a person in the congregation stood up and read Isaiah 26:3 & 4 – the key supporting verse to the sermon.

We moved on, then, to the Lord’s Supper, and by that stage, I was feeling very emotional. I collected the bread and the wine and sat down next to Gail. But God hadn’t finished yet. The sound man, entirely off his own bat, put on a song by Jesus Culture which has a very moving, tender arrangement with stringed instruments. It makes you want to cry and cheer and fly all at the same time. The words are an invitation, “Won't You dance with me, Oh Lover of my soul, to the song of all songs...?” And that is just what He was doing. Jesus was dancing with us, and His bride was being built up in the process.

Will you dance with the Lover of your soul this week? There is nothing He would like better, and nothing you need more.

Cheers for now - Ian