Make Em Jealous
I so badly wish I could dance. I watch an absurd amount of dance videos and catch myself in long trances of entertaining people with my make-believe skills. The only thing I can do is drop down and get my eagle on pretty impressively for an average white boy. After I twerk (drop it like it’s hot, tootsie roll, etc) people usually laugh and ignore the reality that I use twerking to cover up the fact that I really can’t dance.
Have you ever been to a party and a dance battle broke out? If it’s the right crowd, they’re amazing to watch. If it’s a middle class caucasian wedding, they’re atrocious. But dance battles are the reason for why I love movies like Stomp The Yard.
In the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, it tells us the older brother HEARD dancing at the party that was thrown for his younger brother. Heard them dancing? I don’t know how 1st Century Jews got down but apparently Usher, Lil Jon, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg showed up as the entertainment.
What bothers me most about 21st Century Americans (and this includes myself) is you don’t tend to hear Christians dancing. In fact, the world tends to hear us Christians judging, protesting, and living offended. This shouldn’t be. In my opinion, people who follow Jesus should be the most entertaining, fun, creative, innovative, attractive, loving, and grace-filled people on the planet.
Why is it that Christians tend to be jealous of the way their non-Christian friends are living? Why do we believe what society tells us is ‘fun’? Maybe it’s because we’re not aware to the real joy, peace, love, and hope that only Jesus provides. The most attractive people are those who are able to find joy in a season of heartbreak, peace while walking through a storm, love for the people you disagree with, and hope in the middle of uncertainty. Christians have the living Creator of the Universe living inside us…are we showing who Jesus really is? Does our faith dictate our circumstances or do our circumstances dictate our faith? If people were to look at our lives, would they want the Jesus we worship? Are we as Christians provoking the world to jealousy? Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Your life as a Christian should make non-believers question their disbelief in God.” Maybe we need to shift our perspective and change our attitude. Maybe we just need to go dancing…