My own congregation recently held worship in the park. We do this in a local park pavilion twice each year. It is wonderful to worship outdoors. This most recent time, a toddler in our congregation walked up near the front and was dancing to the music. She did so because her grandmother was helping to lead the singing, and her grandmother was beckoning her to come up. It was a beautiful moment. How many of us adults love to see children dancing so freely, and yet we adults would never do such a thing?
In fact, we can feel negatively toward adults who express themselves like that. As we learned in the previous post, David’s wife Michal is REALLY upset at him for expressing himself in worship. As he was leading the worship procession bringing the Ark of Covenant into the city of Jerusalem, David danced with all his might. Michal thought he was acting undignified, and she bitterly tells him so.
We read David’s response in 2 Samuel chapter 6, starting at verse sixteen:
“David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.’ And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.”
How about David’s response, “I will be even more undignified than this!!!!”
The expectation of years and years and decades and decades has finally come to fruition and David just worships the Lord. He does not care what people think of him. He does not care to maintain royal decorum. He simply wants to worship the Lord with all his might! David is not intending to embarrass Michal. He doesn’t walk out of the palace that day and think, “Well, today’s the day I make my wife really angry at me!” He is simply filled with deep, deep gratefulness to God and loses himself in praise. Filling David’s heart is a desire to hold nothing back for God. In his mind, David only sees one person in the audience that day. God.
Thus, David displays astounding humility before the Lord. David is completely surrendered to God while he worships. If a person would dance like David danced during many church worship services, how many of us would feel really negative or offended just like Michal felt about David?
Have you ever watched people in your church raising their hands or clapping and thought to yourself something like Michal thought about David, “Geesh, they are really drawing attention to themselves.”? David’s response to Michal, is a response to anyone who has those negative feelings toward others expressing freedom in worship. David’s is a response that basically says “Repent of your bitterness and have joy when people freely praise the Lord!!!” I’m not saying that people need to worship God in a particular style. I’m saying that we can graciously and joyfully encourage people to worship in ways that are different from us.
David had seen the faithfulness of God for years, and he is just bursting forth with praise. But what about you? Have you forgotten the amazing ways that God has kept his promises to you? Are you coming to church on Sunday mornings worshiping in a ho-hum kind of way? These songs that you sing, the money that you give, the prayer you pray, all should cause you to burst out of your skin with praise!!! We have a reason to praise the Lord with a vigor just like David had, every single Sunday! We have a reason to praise the Lord with all our might!
Years ago I worked in children’s ministry at a local camp meeting. I taught children in grades K-4. It struck me that something happens to us between the time we are children and the time we become adults. There is an innocence lost. When we are adults, our childlike freedom can be held captive to adult decorum. We can feel embarrassed to do anything that might draw the slightest attention to ourselves.
That decorum is not necessarily healthy! Yes we need to progress to maturity, but we also need to become like children. When I am with my nearly three year old grandson, I am reminded of reckless abandon. He learns praise songs with motions, and he claps, dances, and sings.
In 2009 on a mission trip to Costa Rica, my group experienced a freedom in worship that was so healthy. We danced with all our might. We raised our hands. We clapped, we shouted.
At camp, teaching kids, I was doing the same thing! We need that. We need to stop being so concerned about what people think of us, and we need to be concerned what God thinks of us. We need to praise him, regardless of what the people around us may think. Have you felt during worship that you wanted to clap and raise your hands, but you are afraid, embarrassed? You wonder silently to yourself, “What will people think? I’ve never done that before.” So you keep it to yourselves. Perhaps you might choose, like David, to become undignified for Christ.
Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 