Dance Moves
Do you ever wonder if God really loves you? Maybe you don’t tell anyone, but have you ever questioned whether or not God really cares all that much about your lil-ole life? I mean, He’s all, like perfect and everything, and I don’t meet any standard of perfection, so how could I ever be lovable or pleasing to Him? You ever thought that? Because I have. I’ve been a professional at screwing life up and sometimes it’s really easy to doubt that God would see anything He likes in what I’ve got going on. Anybody feel me on that?
If you’re still reading, I guess you’re at least a little bit like me and sometimes you wonder if God really likes you all that much. Well, check this: yesterday I took my five-year-old to her first ballet class. So far she’s never done anything with dance, (unless you count shakin’ it to my Motown playlist) but she was so stinkin’ excited! She was like ‘I can’t sleep’ excited. You see, Norah has been dying to do ballet for a couple years now, so this was like Christmas all over again. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a ballet class made up of five-year-old girls, but you can probably imagine what to expect - lots of high-pitch giggling and not a lot of technically proficient dancing. The instructor told me to wait somewhere else while they had their class and then told me that they would bring all the parents in for the last few minutes to show us all they had learned.
Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting much. I walked in with the other moms (I was the only Dad there) and stood with my back against the wall as instructed. The dance teacher started the music and all the little girls looked straight to the teacher - except one. Norah looked at me. I kid you not, for the entirety of the dance, she would glance at the teacher to get a little reminder of the next move and then, BAM! Her eyes were back on me, looking for my reaction. Now, I’m an emotional guy anyway, but this went straight to the heart. I beamed at Norah, giving her the thumbs up, smiling with all my teeth and nodding my head. My heart was exploding with love for that little girl, and to me, there has never been a dancer quite like Norah in the history of ballet. When the class ended, I picked her up and we headed out of there. When we were on the stairs making our way out, I turned to Norah and said, “Girl, you were AWESOME!” She started laughing and gave me a high five. I said, “You did it! You’re a for real ballerina! You’re a dancer!”
Friends, here’s the thing: I wasn’t proud of Norah because she’s some kind of dancing prodigy. Truth is, they barely did any dance moves at all. But hear me on this: it wasn’t about the dance moves. I don’t care how good of a dancer she is. My heart was not filled and overflowing with love for Norah because she twirled at the right time. My heart was filled with love because she’s my girl and I just love her. God doesn’t love you less if you’re a mess and not doing this well. He loves you because you’re His. Period. End of story. You don’t have to earn it, you can’t make it more or less by being good or bad. Isaiah 43:1-4 says that you are His, you are precious and honored in His sight. He just loves you. It’s like that… believe it.