I’ll become even more undignified than this

I was watching a show this week in a coffee shop / lounge setting – some folk-y, rock-y kind of music – and after a while I started to watch one particular guy more than the band. As the show went on, he was getting more and more excited. He started smiling and tapping his foot, then bouncing his leg and bobbing his head, and after a while this guy just gets up a starts dancing…like a FOOL! (Remember this isn’t a rock show; we’re in a coffee shop.) The band takes note, and starts catering to this guy a bit, and the singer dances with him some. I thought this was awesome, but I look around at the rest of the room and everyone is staring at this guy like he has lost. his. marbles.

I was a little irritated at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more angry I got. If you look back a few days, you’ll even see a post from my Twitter that says “He enjoyed the show more than you.” That was about this guy. The situation made me think of David and Michal from 2 Samuel 6.

Click the link for the full story, but here’s the short version: David dances shamelessly and whole-heartedly before the Lord. Michal (David’s wife) sarcastically and venomously rebukes him for this. God appreciated David’s worship, and didn’t appreciate Michal’s disapproval, so she gets to be barren the rest of her life. Owned.

So as I’m watching this guy make a complete fool of himself, David’s response to Michal’s rebuke begins to sink in:

²² I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.

It occurs to me that the kind of reckless, shameless, foolish trance that came over this guy when he really got into the music is what God wants from me in worship. I’m not saying that God requires me to make myself look like an idiot in front of 20 people to properly worship Him; what I’m speaking of is how much this guy could care less what any of us thought of him – he was into the music and he didn’t care who knew it. We’ll go right ahead and yell, scream, and pass out when we meet our celebrity crush for 30 seconds, but on any given day the Creator of our universe can reach down and touch our spirit, and we’re afraid to lift our hands in worship for fear that someone will think we look funny! That literally makes me sick. I HATE that I’m so inherently prideful that I even think of caring what I look like when I praise God.

I’m not sure exactly what it takes to overcome this pride and be 100% comfortable doing [whatever] in the front of a room holding 200 people (if you know, please tell me) but I know a couple things:

• We surely do not want to be a Michal. If you’re thinking to yourself that someone looks funny, or is embarrassing them self when they’re “dancing before the Lord,” well then shame – on – you. If that’s what your heart is like, you’d better ask Michal if it’s worth it.
• This goes beyond singing a song in church; this is a life concept. 1 Cor 10:31 says this:

^31-33So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you—you’re eating to God’s glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God’s glory. At the same time, don’t be callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the toes of those who aren’t as free as you are. I try my best to be considerate of everyone’s feelings in all these matters; I hope you will be, too. (MSG)

I’ll end with this – my commitment: I will try to be more conscious in deciding how to act of whether or not I decide to please people (or to please myself by not doing something uncomfortable or embarrassing) or to please God. It’s my prayer that you’ll think of this post the next time you wonder whether or not to do something awkward for God’s sake, and then choose to do it. Let’s throw away pride, and let’s become ‘even more undignified’ before the Lord.

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