Dancing on Your Dash: Let’s Dance

Imagine … you’ve just awakened. It’s still dark outside. As you lie there you see the sun slowly beginning to break through. It continues to rise as if it is interrupting the darkness as a stage curtain rises to reveal a stage. But rather than revealing a stage, its revelation is a new day. A new day to which you are being invited with the promise of a purpose, preplanned with each step choreographed by the One who invites you to take His extended right hand … and dance!

Hello friend, and welcome to Strengthen Your Walk! As we begin a brand-new 10-part series called “Dancing on Your Dash” — discerning when and discovering how God has choreographed our daily steps to fulfill the incredible plan He has declared for each of our lives.

I’m Kim Crabill and I’m delighted to have you along for the dance!

 Watch Dancing on Your Dash with Kim Crabill

Dancing … what a beautiful vision … but what does a dash have to do with dancing? Isn’t a dash just a form of punctuation that’s used to set apart or divide? What am I missing here?

Well, let’s begin by talking about the dash. And not just any dash … but specifically the dash that can be so easily overlooked — the one that represents our lives. It’s the dash that appears on gravestones between the date of birth and the date of death. We all see it, but how many times do we truly perceive that the tiny dash represents an entire lifetime! Have you ever thought about that?

The dash can certainly be a bit misleading though because It’s always a straight line! Yet how many of us would say that life is never that simple. We will walk through valleys we are told in the book of Psalm. Isaiah talks about the mountains we will face. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there’s a time for everything in life — not only physically but emotionally and spiritually, as well. There will be times to laugh, times to weep, times to plant, times to uproot, times of war, and times for peace. That tells us that life dips and swerves and climbs and surprises us with wonderful surprises as well as heart-wrenching devastations. Life is neither consistently horizontal nor smooth. And so, we falter and flail and fall along the way. At times we cautiously baby-step along the line, and isn’t it true that other times we try to sprint past the unpleasant parts.

But what if we learned to dance on that dash? Could that be possible? I’m here today to tell you it is possible and over our next few times together we will dive into the scripture to discover how!

So … are you ready to dance?? I’m so excited about this series. So, how about we begin?

Growing up in the south, my young boys attended what was called “Social” twice a week for three years. They learned basic etiquette, such as telephone and table manners, and they also learned ballroom dancing. At the end of the rigorous program, the parents were invited to a recital. It was magical! Watching them glide along the floor, dressed in their Sunday best, it was easy to forget that they were still children.

I recall after one recital I spied my son Trey’s shoes where he had kicked them off and left them on the floor. With a twinkle in my eye, I asked my husband, Lee, “Do you think if you put those on, you could dance the way Trey did?” With a giggle, Lee reminded me that they were not, in fact, magical shoes!

Dancing on our dash … living life at its best … does not require magic shoes. It does however require the perfect partner, and today — at this very minute — God extends His hand to each of us, offering to be that partner. And what a partner He is! You see, God knows our dash isn’t a smooth, straight line. He understands that it’s crooked and challenging at times. He understands that we aren’t the most elegant dancers and, in fact, He knows we often go through life feeling as if we have two left feet. Yet He longs for us to say yes to the dance. Yes to life. Yes to its rises and falls. Yes to blocking out the naysayers who tell us it’s too late to dance, that we’re too old, or too broken, or too much. His extended hand is an invitation for us to say, “Yes, God, I want to dance. I don’t know what to expect, I don’t know where you will lead, but I know I can count on You.”

Maybe your life has you in a place where dancing seems like an impossible dream. Perhaps you cannot imagine a single good reason for dancing when the burdens you carry seem so heavy. I suspect we’ve all been there at times. But remember, this time you’ll be dancing with the perfect partner. And with an extended hand, He reminds us in John 16:33 that even in the midst of all of life’s ups and downs, valleys and mountaintops, in its daily trials and tribulations, that by taking His hand, we can dance because He has overcome it all. So today friends, let’s say yes to the dance and allow it to Strengthen Our Walk.

Watch Now!