Dancing with God – Shayna Fitzgerald
Almost 18 months ago I made the decision to consistently go to church. I called it my ‘new year’s resolution’ – to build a relationship with God.
However, my journey with faith has not been linear, and I don’t believe that is the case for anyone else either. There have been many moments where I didn’t feel worthy of God’s love, or deserving of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. I even had many moments where I didn’t think baptism was for me – because I wasn’t a ‘perfect Christian’, and I hadn’t been doing this very long.
It wasn’t until recently, when I listened to a song, where I actually realised my progress as a Christian.
“Everything changed, it’s getting harder to recognise,
the person I was before I encountered Christ.”
Through this, I also realised that I didn’t need to be perfect. My life, and my relationship with God was never about my performance as a person – how many good acts I did, or how often I prayed. It was never about being deserving for it or having to earn his love and praise. In fact, all I needed to do was exist. That was enough.
Coming to this, although simple, but necessary realisation, has made my faith grow in many ways I never thought possible. Suddenly, my prayer time isn’t lonely anymore. I can feel the presence of God and the Holy Spirit. I can see more accurately the ways in which God is working in and through my life.
I understand many of you reading this have perhaps been in the church your whole life. Or at least a lot longer than myself. But I want to ask you this – can you feel God’s fingertips on your life?
Recently I heard an analogy about our relationship with God. So please bear with me as I explain how our relationship with God is like a dance.
When you dance with a partner, if you focus too much on yourself, the dance can become messy. However, when you focus on making your partner look good, and vice versa, the dance can blossom into something magical to watch.
This is exactly like our relationship with God. The Lord created humanity so that we may have a relationship with Him. So that, by our own love for Him, our respect, admiration, and our glorification of Him, we want to dance with the Lord.
God will always invite us to dance. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, it was the Lord’s way of extending a hand and saying, “take it and dance with me.”
We should always try to remember that God wants us to be with him, no matter who we are, what we do, or how our lives go. Jesus already died for us. We do not need to spend our life nitpicking at ourselves for never “being enough”, because in God’s eyes, we are his sons and daughters, whom he already loves very much.
“And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus,
the pioneer and perfector of faith. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners,
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Hebrews 12:1-3
Have a blessed week.
Shayna