Remember the movie, Babe?

Remember the scene after Babe ran away and Farmer Hoggett found him sick and muddy? Hoggett takes him home and cleans him up and tries to get him to eat, feeding him from a bottle like a little baby. When Babe doesn’t quite respond to this tenderness, Hoggett begins to sing over his pig. Eventually, the old man gets up and dances for the pigs pleasure. What is so wonderful about that scene is that the singing-dancing Hoggett seems so completely out of character to the stoic “almighty boss” Hoggett in the rest of the film. The idea is that the old farmer gets caught up in the moment of loving this pig and wanting the animal to be healthy and strong again. He can’t help but dance. (And the final shot of the scene, all the other farm animals peeking in the window completely astounded at Hoggetts behavior! Love that shot!)

How often to we think of God as that Stoic Bossman? We look to Him to provide everything we need (green pastures and roofs over our head) but we kind of think of Him as a peripheral provider. God of the arms-length relationship. He sleeps in the house, while we get the barn (if we are lucky). He eats the good food while we survive on the scraps. He calls the orders from the sidelines of our lives, while we are running circles in the fields trying to obey them. And the best that we can hope for (we imagine with our itty bitty imaginations) is a non-emotional “That’ll do, pig” at the end of our lives.

Today I am thanking God for dancing and singing over me. I am deliberately replacing the image of my Father as a stoic-sideline-farmer and replacing them with up-close-and-cuddling-me-singing-dancing-farmer. Like Babe, I’ve run away at times in my life. And like Babe, I’ve ended up freezing and hungry and coated in mud. And God always comes after me.

He washed off years of abandonment and wrapped me in a blanket of His warm acceptance and love.

He’s fed my starving spirit with the goodness of His Word.

He sings new songs over me all of the time.

Whenever I am not feeling so hot, when situations or experiences have put me in a funk, He has always been there willing to dance all over them to lift my head.

He danced over a broken home all those years ago. He’s danced over the needs of my children that I could NOT ever even HOPE to meet (as a single parent, yes, but He continues). He’s danced over my loneliness. He’s danced over my finances. He’s danced over my health and the health of those I love. He’s danced over my work to give me satisfaction there. He’s danced over my ministry to give me deep joy there. He’s danced to awaken the creative spirit He planted in me when He knit me in my mother’s womb.

Each song that He sings over me and each step that He takes in celebration with me LIFTS MY HEAD. It renews my strength. It increases my faith and sets me back in a right mind. I have learned that there is no situation that God’s song and celebration cannot touch. And after experiencing them…the songs and the dances…I am made well enough to continue obeying His commands. Well enough to feast on His Word, His promises, the blessings of obeying Him.

What has God danced over in your life? What situation is He moving in time for now?