Do you ever feel like everybody else can do something you can’t do and you have no idea how that happened? Like you don’t know where you were when everyone learned to do this thing, but somehow you missed it?
That’s how I feel about line dancing.
I’m always astonished when songs like “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” are cranked up at social gatherings and suddenly everyone leaps up, lines up and shuffles, slides, steps, hops and claps in perfect unison. It’s like watching one of those National Geographic shows about birds or bugs that receive mysterious signals that prompt them to all do the same thing at the same time.
It freaks me out a little. How and when did these people learn to do this? And how come I didn’t?
After it happened again recently at a cookout, I came up with a theory: I think it’s because during my formative years, almost no one I knew ever danced at parties or receptions. I’m not sure why they didn’t. Certainly not because of any religious convictions, because those were pretty much non-existent in the crowd I ran with back then. Dancing just wasn’t very popular at that time, in that place, among my peeps, and this obviously left a gaping hole in my social training.
Please know I’ve unsuccessfully tried to overcome this handicap. I recall being at a church women’s event a few years back—a pool party—and when someone announced it was time to do the “Electric Slide,” I humbly asked for a quick lesson.
We were in a swimming pool, but surely one can line dance in a pool, right? Well, maybe, unless one is standing too close to the shallow end/deep end drop off. Let’s just say an already futile, ungraceful lesson got a lot more futile and less graceful when I dropped off that edge.
But even before that happened, my line-dancing lesson wasn’t going well. For the life of me, I just couldn’t remember the steps. I’ve never struggled to learn any sport I’ve ever tried, but I sure couldn’t remember those dance moves. It’s like that part of my brain is missing.
That helpless feeling of sheer incompetence reminded me of some other failures in my life: 1) trying to learn to sew; and 2) trying to pretend I was okay with God before I really was.
That second one is especially scary. I’d occasionally read the Bible, but it mostly didn’t make sense to me. I’d go to church, but I was bored to death. I followed a moral code of sorts, but it was my own invention and constantly changed. And yet, if you’d asked me, I’d have said I felt confident God would surely let me into heaven.
I had, as the Bible describes it, a form of religion, but without any power (2 Timothy 3:5), and it was about as enjoyable as flat, fizzless Pepsi.
Now I understand why. Jesus plainly said that in order to “see the kingdom of God”—to experience its promises, wonders, joys and power—we must be “born again” (John 3:3), a truth that has unfortunately been mocked in modern times.
An unregenerate person may come to recognize his or her need for forgiveness and grace, but truly walking and growing in a real relationship with God requires the enlightenment and transforming power of the Holy Spirit that is given only after one wholeheartedly acknowledges Jesus Christ as Savior and commits to follow Him.
Being a Christ-follower is an opportunity available to all. Unlike so many other things in life, it’s for “whosever will,” not “whosoever can.” There’s no need for anyone to be left on the sidelines of this all-important dance.