David Danced

David danced before the Lord.

It was a very emotional time. The Ark of the Covenant had been out of place for a long time. The Israelites had taken it into battle, thinking that God would bless their efforts against the Philistines if the Ark, which represented God’s presence, were there in the battle with them. Even the Philistines understood what the Ark meant, and were badly shaken at its presence. The Israelites, though, were outside of the will of God, and God allowed the Ark to be captured by the Philistines, but then He punished the Philistines for having it. So, the Philistines made an offering to the God of Israel, and returned the Ark.

When the Israelites first tried to return the Ark to Jerusalem, though, they did everything wrong. The Law of Moses dictated that the Ark should be carried by the Levites; King David had them build a new cart for the Ark, and have the people surround the cart, as the oxen pulled the cart back to Jerusalem. Apparently God was willing to let that slide, judging them by their intentions rather than their results, but, in the middle of this, a man named Uzzah felt the need to touch the Ark and God struck him dead on the spot.

David realized at that moment that they were messing up. We could speculate on what was going on inside Uzzah’s head that God felt it necessary to strike him down, but David understood that all of Israel was in the wrong. I don’t think that he really understood all that they were doing wrong, but he was not willing to continue any farther towards Jerusalem and put more of his subjects’ lives at risk. He ordered that the Ark be left there at the place that became known as Perez-Uzzah because of the death of Uzzah.

After a considerable amount of time, there was considerable prayer, and much study of the law concerning things, but David had the Levites carry the Ark back to Jerusalem. When the Ark was back in its proper place, it was as though Israel had once again accepted God’s proper place, and that they were again accepted by God. As I mentioned earlier, it was a very emotional time. David danced with all his might before the Lord.

David’s wife Michal saw him dancing and became upset. We aren’t really told why it upset her, but it did. I think it’s pretty safe to say that at least part of the reason was that she was not, herself, right with God. Do you suppose that David was a terrible dancer, and she was embarrassed? Yet everyone else who watched David dancing, if he did dance badly, at least understood why he was dancing, and were willing to overlook any lack of grace in his movements. Perhaps she was upset simply because he wasn’t dancing with her, but, I seriously doubt that he would not have been happy to dance with her if she had simply gone to him and joined in the dance. Perhaps she was jealous of the God that David had for God, but, surely she realized that quality was one of the things that attracted her to David in the first place.

In any case, sometimes we feel moved to do things, and maybe we are afraid of embarrassing ourselves if we do them badly, so we beg off. Of course, if God is truly in whatever it is that we feel moved to do, then He will bless our efforts, and He will bring forth fruit from what we are doing. It’s even conceivable that God wants us to embarrass ourselves to make us seem more approachable to those around us; to encourage people to think, “Well, you know, if that klutz can be a Christian, then maybe I can, too.” We Christians have a bad tendency to think that we aren’t supposed to let anyone see our shortcomings, that God took those things from us when He took us in, but sometimes it’s important that people see the things that we aren’t good at, and realize that Christians are still human, and we still make mistakes; the difference is in the forgiveness.