Let God Lead the Dance

HS #27 2017.10.3

Let God Lead the Dance

Recently I received an email from a person with whom I had had a conversation seven years ago concerning faith, belief, and the existence of God. He detailed that several years ago he had converted from an agnostic/materialistic worldview to orthodox Catholicism partially as a result of a supernatural experience, and found his new faith more intellectually satisfying. He then asked where my religious-philosophical-spiritual journey had taken me.

As I was finishing my response, I thought I might also share it via this column.

The most significant revelation I've had in recent years was when I was hiking along a beach boardwalk with my welsh corgi on a fine September afternoon.   I made a pillow of dried pines needles and lay there, looking up through the green boughs to the blue sky as my dog lay at my head and the breeze carried the pine scent over me. I felt immensely grateful and didn't know what to do with my gratitude. I wanted to  formulate a prayer to God - thanking him for the moment, but I felt embarrassed - similar to how I’d feel if I had rubbed a lucky rabbits foot. 

Then the image/phrase "Let God lead the dance" came to mind.

The idea is this: I don't know whether there is a personal God. If there isn't, I don’t want to live by a false belief. But if there is, I don't want to shut off acknowledging, experiencing, and relating to God. Then I realized if this WAS a gift of God, it was a subtle gift, and God shouldn't mind if I respond in kind. Thus just the feeling of gratitude itself seemed an appropriately subtle but genuine response to the gift. 

Moreover, I realized I could apply the idea more generally. I will let God lead the dance. If I hear God speak to me audibly, I will respond in kind. If God taps me on the shoulder, I will turn around. If God communicates with me through the words or life of another person, I will interact with that person. Thus while not closing off the possibility of interaction with God, I am not forcing the issue either. God - if there is a God behind these things - is the one in control. 

Although contrary to a perspective of God who waits for us to decide when to offer praise and petition, there is also biblical support for this alternate view.

Moses spent forty years in Egypt and then forty years tending sheep before God decided to interact with him supernaturally via the burning bush. When he did, Moses responded.

Elijah waited isolated in the wilderness for three years when hunted by King Ahab. Then God spoke to him in a barely audible voice, and Elijah took action. 

I'm not saying that every relationship with God need involve something unique and supernatural. I AM saying that if God exists and wants to have a relationship with someone, then God can find a way – possibly depending on the personality of the individual. 

When the atheist mathematician/philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked how he would respond if God chided him for his non-belief, Russell said he'd reply, "Not enough evidence." 

Makes sense to me. Some people believe things easily. Others, like Russell, do not. Russell spent fifteen years writing a three-volume work that provided a logical foundation for the truth of mathematics. Several hundred pages into the second volume, he finally proved that 1+1=2. If God wanted a relationship with Bertrand, God knew that He'd have to do more than usual. 

C.S. Lewis captures the subtle action of God in "A Horse and his Boy" of the Chronicles of Narnia. A child has rare and brief encounters (often frightening) with a lion throughout his early life. Only later does the lion, Aslan (the Christ figure), reveal himself fully to the young boy, and disclose that he has been working behind the scenes throughout the boy’s life. 

Again, this picture is that God is able and willing to lead the dance - revealing himself to whomever he wants whenever he wants. Indeed, the Apostle Paul, who had his own dramatic encounter with God at God's choosing, explains all of this in Romans 9. That chapter screams: God is the one in control. 

So if there is a personal God, I will let God be the one in control - let God lead the dance, and I, remaining open, will respond in kind.