Dance Like Only God is Watching

As much as I hate to admit it, I care what people think about me. I do. I’ve lived my whole life up to this point trying to be cool by saying I don’t care. But it’s time be honest with myself; I do. I care what you, a complete and total stranger reading this blog, is thinking about me while reading this.

Whether it’s the clothes I wear, the way I style our apartment, or what I post on social media, I’m usually wondering what people like you think. It even happens at church.

Because of my people-pleasing struggle, I’ve been drawn to David’s story.

In 2 Samuel 5, David plans to bring Israel’s most special possession (the Ark of the Covenant) back to God’s city—Jerusalem. The Ark, symbolizing God’s presence, was a physical reminder of what God had done, what God was doing, and what God would do. And it needed to be in Jerusalem. So, in 2 Samuel 6:1-2, David and his men traveled to retrieve it.

They hardly crossed the street with the Ark when the party started and continued all the way back to Jerusalem. The entire way back, David worshiped God with all of his might (2 Samuel 6:14-15). I’m talking, full body, I-don’t-care-who’s-watching worship. Scripture tells us David was wearing nothing more than a linen “ephod”, a sleeveless undergarment that came down to about the hip. Picture it: a world leader, dancing and singing in front of a crowd… in his underwear.

Here’s the thing: all the other men in the crowd would have been in ephods. Meaning, David took off his kingly robe for the simple, humble covering of an ephod. Michal, his wife, accused David of dancing like a common man, beneath his station in life, no robe or crown to display him as king. An ephod was worn by the most simple servants of the Lord. Not to mention, this ancient dance was very different from what we know. It included the women only (Exodus 15:20; Judges 11:34). David worshiped God with complete humility and disregard of how he looked to others. He thought only of honoring God and forgot himself.

David summed up his attitude best when he said, “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” (2 Samuel 6:22, NIV).

“I often wonder where we would be as a worshipping church without David – without his songs (the psalms) and his wild, unpredictable passion for the Lord. I wonder how much more locked up our response would be if we never knew that God considered this wild man of worship to be a man after His own heart; the very same man who danced his clothes off before the Lord and instead of responding in shame to the embarrassment of his own wife simply said “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” The life of David forever gives permission to the worshipper to freely, wildly and whole-heartedly respond to the love and majesty of God.” – Jeremy Riddle

As a recovering people-pleaser, I’m learning God wants me to live like this: with complete humility and disregard of what others think.

He longs to be so intimate with me that nothing else matters. He longs for me to be so secure that the opinions of others don’t paralyze me. He longs for me to be this wild, this free, this humble because of His grace.

Jeremiah said, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.” King David, a man after God’s own heart who worshipped God with humility, was certainly not perfect. He was no stranger to sin (adultery, murder, to name a few…). Yet the Lord was gracious to fulfill His promise to David, and the righteous Branch, Jesus, humbled himself from His heavenly garments in the form of man so as to live the perfectly righteous life for us so we might be clothed in His heavenly garments, accepted by the Father.

I’m not encouraging corporate underwear worship, because I don’t think that’s the point of David’s ephod in 2 Samuel 6 at all. But I am saying this: if we remembered the depths of our sin and of His grace, we’d dance—uninhibited, unashamed, and utterly in awe. The key to killing our people-pleasing is not necessarily killing our insecurities by dwelling on our identities in Christ — no, we need to go straight for the real culprit, our pride. We need to repent of the obsession we have with ourselves, and instead, be consumed with a greater fear of the Lord in the gospel of Jesus. By clothing ourselves with His heavenly garments and forgetting ourselves, we will find ourselves wild and free both privately and corporately. It’s time for us to dance like only God is watching. Amen?