Undignified
by John Berry
King David had such an exciting day! After three months of hesitation, he’d at last decided that the Ark of God really did belong in the City of David. He’d been afraid to bring the Ark home before, because of what happened to Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:7-9), but now he’d heard that God had blessed the temporary home of the Ark at Obed-Edom’s house, and he probably wanted some of that blessing!
Perhaps it was the thought of what would happen when the Ark came to Jerusalem, with all the favour of God to be shown to him, or maybe it was the relief of at last doing what God wanted and overcoming his fear and reticence, either way, David was ecstatically happy with the event, and the result was that he danced before the Lord wearing a linen ephod. This was both a very holy garment, and inappropriate for anyone to dance in, especially a king. It’s not surprising that his wife Michal disapproved.
When David was challenged by his wife about his behaviour, his reply was that he would continue to celebrate before the Lord, even becoming less kingly and more undignified if needs be. Husband and wife appear to have had a rather difficult marriage from then on.
I wonder how much our worship is affected by the way other people view it, instead of being prepared for God’s sake, to give up normal respectability? There may be times when we might seem to be as undignified as David. As the Spirit of the Lord leads us, perhaps there will be occasions when we feel we want to weep, laugh, shout, dance, sing or whatever. Are we so concerned with doing everything decently and in order (1 Corinthians 15:40) that we’ve lost the spontaneity of true Spirit-inspired worship?
Let’s choose to celebrate before the Lord, using all that He’s gifted us with, even if we’re moving out of the realms of conventional respectability and our own comfort zones!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You that You give us so much to celebrate. You have made us, loved us, forgiven us, saved us and restored us into Your family. As we celebrate, free us in Your Spirit to worship You with all that we are, and not to be restricted by the disapproval of others. Help us to be sensitive to those who struggle with our celebrations, and to find ways of blessing them also, as we worship You. Amen.
John Berry entered the Baptist Ministry more than 40 years ago, and joined the Team at Ellel Glyndley Manor in 2007 with his wife Jennie. They have both now retired from the team but remain as part of the Teaching and Associate Ministry Teams at Glyndley. John and Jennie have seven Grandchildren.
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