It was quite an experience (right up until the point when I found out that the school I was working at didn’t allow their staff to dance – who knew)!

When I was first married my wife begged me to take some ballroom dancing lessons with her. I was reluctant… but who wants to say ‘no’ to your new bride!

Having been an athlete for most of my life I was amazed at how clumsy I felt.

I think it had something to do with that fact that what I did impacted, and was impacted by, my partner.

Many of the sports I had played were team sports that necessitated each team member doing their part for the whole thing to work… but it was still different.

It was almost as if I was attempting to run a deep route while participating in a three-legged race; or attempting a fast break in one of those two-person costumes that require both parties to move in-step with one another…

It was not easy!

In fact, far from it!!

I’ve had a number of conversations with students recently about their struggles with different habitual sins.

It seems my talks with these students often go one of two ways:

1. They have grown weary of all of their failed efforts and have nothing left to give, OR
2. They confess their faith, hope and trust in God’s grace and are waiting for Him to take it away.

In their mind it’s all or nothing…

Either it’s all up to them — and God has no part in the process — which results in them feverishly trying to clean up their act so that they will be “acceptable” to God (or so they’ll feel worthy enough to approach Him);

OR it’s all up to God — and there’s nothing for them to do in the matter.

While one of these paths would be easier… it rarely is the way that God chooses to work.

In my experiences, our spiritual formation — that which transforms us more into the likeness of Jesus — is a lot more like a dance.

Jesus serves as the instructor and lead dancer in the pair.

We are the willing partner.

We have a role in the dance.

But the role is secondary to that of God.

The ‘dance’ experience is something else — something less — something other — if we’re not on the dance floor, or if we’ve relegated God to a chair over by the punch bowl.

Healing, transformation, becoming more like Jesus… becoming the person that God created us to be requires that we willingly join in ‘the Dance’.

We may not be in control, we may not know where we’re going — or when, but the experience and the outcomes of joining God in the dance of our life is a dance we must be willing to engage in and commit to!

Helping students to learn this dance is a significant part of our work on campus.

Don’t you think?

How have you helped students to understand ‘the Dance’ and their role in it?