Dancing Queen

I've been sick last week...
---- yes again ----
Because of that,

• I missed the bible-study-thing we're having on Thursday
• I missed the bible-study-enclosing-weekend we had last weekend
• I wasn't able to post anything uplifting really AND
• Became aware of the fact that I should really take things down a little bit.
  
  "Don't worry about a thing, make all your requests known to God and the peace of God will guard your heart and thoughts"

Enfin - Enough Excuses

DANCING!!!

...it's quite commonplace to talk about "what are your plans for the coming weekend" on Fridays. So today that question came up more than once. And as I don't have any significant plans, people get surprised why I don't go out to dance... go to a club somewhere.
I always give some spiritual reply about "how the whole dancing - bar - club - scene is not really 'my thing'... I love to dance, but as soon as half-drunken-men start puffing in my ears, it takes away all the fun. And they always puff ;-)

BUT as I walked home, I started thinking (yes, I did! and it didn't hurt) why I don't dance, while I love to dance.

And the honest answer to myself actually IS the spiritual one: that I don't want to get myself wrapped up into a life that is about club-hopping and drunken - puffing men.

Still God put this desire in me to dance.

Why would He do that! It's not like His hobby is to get people as frustrated as can be, putting in them a desire to dance and then asking them not to.
So the one conclusion I could think of, would be, that dancing is designed - originally - for people to express themselves with. for people to worship God...
...and if God created music and dancing and art - and He gave all those artistic gifts to us...
...then why is music about the only artistic expression of worship that we know in churches???

In my first month as a christian (I was about 17 years old) I already knew there was something missing in the church. I looked around in the church, and saw young people "bored to the core"... and it hit me... because I knew God wasn't boring at all!

I'm NOT pleeding for churches to have Dj's come over or to turn services into clubs, And I really don't know how we could dance more in churches in a way that will honor God as God, since He is Holy, but I just can't believe He'll put a desire to dance in our hearts without any way to use it in worship of Him.

He isn't boring and He'll never be! He is the Creator, the Master Artist, The One Who Makes All things NEW. And today it hit me again: we - men - have put God into such a boring humanistic program, while I believe with ALL MY HEART that

God is inviting us TO DANCE!

And then it's W - E - E - K - E - N - D

Marvellous!

I can't remember my last plan-free weekend... but there it was... right this weekend... this is the one I want to remember until the next one comes. I strived to keep this weekend plan-free, and succeeded. Strive diligently to enter that rest. :-)

Hebrews 4:11 (Amplified Bible)
Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves],

I watched a beautiful documentary "Etre et Avoir" with my roommate Friday.

Yesterday the sun woke me up. And it's a weird habit, but, if I have the chance, I love to go and watch the crocusses in Den Haag. So that's exactly what I did.

I'm sorry... the picture is not really as beautiful as I intended it to be, but it enables me to share this joy with you all a little.

Then there seemed to be some out-door-photography exposition, (fortunate) and during the entire morning, (GLORY GLORY) I enjoyed the sunlight. I stood there for about 15 minutes bathing in the sun. And after that, took this picture.

:-)

In Den Haag... people from some church in Den Haag were preaching the gospel on the streats. I started talking to one guy from that group. His first question was if I go to a church. Well, one has to start a conversation somewhere, so far so good. As he noticed I was a christian too, he started preaching - really preaching - about "their" church. Haha...
I've seen so many churches here in Zeist now... There is no such thing as an "ideal church". So I didn't repent from non-babtism-church-attending yesterday. ;-) But I WAS really happy seeing Christ being proclaimed.

Phillipians 1: 18But what does it matter, so long as either way, whether in pretense [for personal ends] or in all honesty [for the furtherance of the Truth], Christ is being proclaimed? And in that I [now] rejoice, yes, and I shall rejoice [hereafter] also.

So it only gets better, because as a result, I was all the more looking forward to go to the local reformed church here.

So this mornings service, I ran into my roommates parents who happen to be there. :-) They introduced me to people I never really met before. As I mentioned in my last post: greating strangers, meeting new people, is something that is really important to me. So I loved it.

That church is far from what I'm used to. It's not "evangelical" or a babtist-church. Its singing psalms, it's the organ, the pulpit, the program. For the natural eye it's your standard boring service. But God was present there. and that makes all the difference. I had trouble keeping my hands down while singing and praying (because I'm used to be more --- mmm --- expressive).

The church is in desperate need of the presence of God.