The Parable of the Dancing God

Well back at work after a nice week off, with plenty of healing times with God, much needed & the explanation for my extreme tiredness I suspect; I practically slept the week away ... much to the dismay of my brother on the day I was supposed to be taking the little girls to the park with him while the others shopped. I did get there in time...for lunch at the pub!

I did use the computer a bit but not much (and very refreshing that was too). I had to go online to cancel my TV license (in light of the no channels situation) although only after much vascillating (talk about the 'double minded' man in James; I'd have beaten him in any double-minded competition!) I decided against the dish on the roof for more channels of mostly-rubbish/repeated TV, even though I can't get Freeview without it. I'm not saying I went on about it...but my sister did threaten to never speak to me again if I so much as breathed the words sky, television or 'phone in her general direction!

Anyway, very next day the 'phone engineer came to install landline & we found a cupboard next to flat opposite, with the connections to the main TV arial for the 4 flats and a big switch ... turned off. So, 4 channels restored at the flick of a switch... and my first call on my landline? To cancel the online cancellation of my TV license.

Anyway, yeh, so back at work but definitely out of blogging mode still, so I'm cheating with this link to a story called Parable of the Dancing God. This is the introduction, and it's very interesting; the story itself shows how the parable of the prodigal son reveals the father heart of God. My colleague forwarded me the link (emailed by her neice who is a Christian). I hope she reads it.

Parable of the Dancing God by C Baxter Kruger (based on the Prodigal Son).

Have you ever met anyone who longed for rejection? I suppose there could be someone somewhere who might wish for such a thing, but I doubt it. The very idea of someone longing to be cut off or spurned or excluded is ludicrous.We all hate rejection. And we hate rejection because it hurts--and hurts in away that few other things can. Think of a 10 year old girl who breaks her armat school and has to be rushed to the hospital. The broken arm certainly hurts,but the Doctors will give her a shot, set it, put a cast on it and she will be fine.In a few days she will go back to school something of a hero--everyone will want to sign her cast. But think of the same girl getting off the bus in tearsbecause her best friend laughed at her and made fun of her in front of others. Her mom tries to console her but somehow a mother’s words of comfort arenot as powerful as a friends words of rejection. And there is no shot to take tonumb this hurt. There is no cast to set a broken heart. More than likely thegirl will spend the afternoon in her room alone and in tears. When she goesback to school she will go as a wounded girl, and that wound will make herafraid and guarded and hesitant. That is what rejection does to us. It changesus. It makes us guarded and tentative, even suspicious, and that drives us intoone form of hiding or another.

But why is it that rejection hurts us so deeply? I suspect that the power ofrejection comes from the way we are wired, so to speak. We are made foracceptance. We are designed so that we come to life when we are accepted.As a fish thrives and flourishes in water, human beings thrive and flourish inacceptance. It is our native environment. We are not much good, andcertainly not happy without it.

The evil one is well aware of the way we are made. He knows whathappens to a fish when it is jerked out of water, and he knows what happens tous when we are “taken out” of acceptance. He is a rejection specialist and hischief strategy is to convince us that we are not acceptable. He has a bag oftricks that he uses on us, some obvious and some more subtle, but by far and away his most pervasive trick is to tamper with our understanding of God.That is the biggy. If he can convince us that God has rejected us, or even that God does not like us or want us, then the game of life is up. We become likethe 10 year old girl sitting alone in her room in tears. When we do venture outof our rooms, we do so as wounded people and that is not a recipe forfellowship and life. It is all very simple. Rejection shuts down our freedom to live.

Of course, Jesus knows all about the power of acceptance. He has lived inthe freedom and joy of the Father’s embrace and untold delight from alleternity. He knows the Father is no legalist and he was appalled and deeplyoffended at the way the so-called religious leaders of his day tarred his Fatherwith their legalist’s brushes. So he set out to change their notion of God--and ours--so that we could all see and know and feel the lavish embrace andacceptance of the Father, and know its freedom and joy to the core of ourbeings, and thus live life.

Luke 15 is Jesus’ most direct attack on wrongheaded thoughts about God.But beware of listening to Jesus. His Father is good and His love ispassionate. To get a glimpse of the truth about God just might kindle afreedom and joy in you that you have only dreamed about.