Dancing With God

             Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”

Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 

Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” (John 21: 20-23)

 

They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. (John 16:2)

 

 

            Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been struggling with some ideas and with myself. I have spent a good deal of my life going back and forth between trying to be a good daughter, sister, friend, citizen, employee, neighbor, Christian, person, etc., and being who and what I am. The problem is that it’s impossible to do everything I need to do to be all those good things, but when I am myself, people ask me what’s wrong with me, ask why can’t I just _______, or they walk away. I remember trying to explain the biochemical differences between an introvert and an extrovert to someone, and her response was, “Oh, you mean they could give you drugs and make you normal?” There was a time when I realized that when I meet people, I tend to put on a “freak show,” to convince them how strange I am so that they walk away sooner rather than later. After all, sooner won’t hurt as much. I haven’t noticed myself doing that as much recently, but I have felt as if I needed to defend myself, and I’ve noticed that other people seem to like to play carnival barker, announcing to the world that I’m one of the attractions.

            And then John Ortberg shared his video blog post about not pretending to be someone we aren’t. We’re supposed to just be ourselves. But what happens when being ourselves makes us unacceptable to others – not because we’re doing something wrong but because we’re not like them? What happens when being ourselves hurts us.

            While I have to deal with these questions in terms of life in general, Christians face it in our post-modern society and have faced it in many societies in the past. As the passage from John above points out, people will think they are serving God by attacking you, or me. They may even think they’re helping you.

            All of that brings me back to an idea I have touched on a few times – dancing with God. This morning, I learned a lesson about dancing with God. It’s one of those obvious bits of wisdom but it speaks directly to the struggle I’m facing. You can’t dance with God and dance with everyone else, too. If God is directing me, and I believe He is, then I must go where He leads – not worry about what God is doing with someone else, or whether someone else approves of what I’m doing.

            Part of me is chuckling, because the idea that has come to mind is that when I encounter something I don’t know how to handle at work, it is appropriate for me to take the matter to my manager. So when someone (including me) has issues with me, should I not suggest that we both refer the issue to my manager. I’m not suggesting that the person with the issue is wrong or that I should ignore them. It’s just that I’m not really qualified to handle the situation, and I can either dance with God, or dance with you.