Dancing Carl??

All of life
is like a dance.
Me personally,
I don't dance.
I can't dance.
It wouldn't be
a pleasant thing
to watch me dance.
At least I imagine it wouldn't. But all of us dance through life. We twist, and whirl, and dance with the circumstances of life trying to make sense of it all. We all have events both pleasant and painful that cause us to wrestle and twirl through life. But as the wrestling becomes more twirling (figuratively speaking) you begin to dance.

I once attempted to preach a message I entitled 'Dance with your God.' from a Psalm that David wrote. It was Psalm 37 to be exact. Perhaps some of you who read this were there and will remember the title of my message, at the very least, if you don't recall the content. The title of my message came from one of the many possible uses of the Hebrew word 'Chuwl' in Psalm 37:7. The verse says, "Rest in the LORD, and '(chuwl) wait patiently for him': fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass."

I determined from that study forward that I would 'dance' through life, waiting patiently upon God in every circumstance. As I did this, I began to see everything as having purpose and meaning. Rather than seeing only some things as being meaningful and other things as being drab and boring or pointless. I even began to see the painful circumstances in my life as being rich in meaning.

Psalm 37 was penned in the context of very distressing circumstances for David and yet he said, "Fret not,... Trust in the LORD, Delight thyself also in the LORD, Commit thy way unto the LORD, Rest in the LORD, and Chuwl... 'wait patiently for Him'" And as I began doing this, as I do this now as faithfully as possible, I see things in an incredibly different light than I had before.

Shortly after preaching that message I found this copy (the one in the photo) of 'Dancing Carl' in the GoodWill store for a dollar. I couldn't NOT buy it. And it has become one of my favorite short stories of all time. The fictional character, Carl Wenstrom, and his creator, Gary Paulsen, spoke volumes to me in my endeavor to 'dance' with God through the details of life. Carl couldn't tolerate bullies, he stood up for the opressed, loved with class and passion, and saw things around him differently than most folks. His ways (albeit fictional as they were) spoke volumes to me in my endeavor to 'dance' with God through the details of my life. And this commitment has turned my focus from being all about me and my pain, to being all about God, the dance called life, and my life's impact on others.

It's NOT about me,
And it's not about you,
It's all about God's Son and
Jesus is ALL about OTHERS.

He must increase Christian...
And we must decrease. Make it so. Live it!