Children dance. You have probably noticed. They run, jump, sing, play, and do things with complete abandon. They can't help it. They are children. They are full of life, uninhibited, full of dreams, reckless, full of big ideas, wild, and in fact, just plain undignified! However, there is something that sets it all up and the same can be seen in the life of David. This is especially true when we read about him in 2 Samuel 6.
David was hesitant to take the ark of the Lord to the City of David as Uzzah had been struck dead by touching the ark of God. In fact, the word tells us in verse 9 that, "David was afraid of the Lord that day..." David, instead of taking the ark to the City of David, because of fear, took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite out of anger. There it remained for three months.
The word then tells us that David began to see just how blessed the house of Obed-Edom had become because of the ark of God. In seeing this, David was made glad and brought the ark to the City of David. Verse 14 tells us, "Then David danced before the Lord with all his might..." That is pretty wild! A little later we read that Michal saw David doing his little jig and got her feathers ruffled. She was so flustered by it she went to David in an attempt to correct his display. David responded in a way that has spawned many songs of worship, "I will be even more undignified than this..."
It is interesting to see the similarities here between David and little children. David was very much like a child, dancing his way into the city before the Lord. This dancing was made possible because He knew he was a child. He only knew he was a child when he was reminded of it by the incident with Uzzah, followed by the blessing of the house of Obed-Edom. This produced a remembrance of the fear of the Lord and the provision of the Lord. And here is the point, it is only in the atmosphere of the fear of the Lord and the provision of the Lord that His sons and daughters can dance undignified like a child. Take away one of those dynamics and there is chaos.
Children usually only dance undignified when the home has an atmosphere of reverential parental fear and parental provision. That is why children are care free. They know they are taken care of, so they dance. They know they can be children. I have seen this on display in children who have these dynamics going on in the home and have seen the absence of it when the atmosphere is lacking one of the dynamics, or even both. We all must remember the fear of the Lord and also His provision, because I believe our Father truly wants us to dance undignified before Him in worship.
Stephen Ibach
Creative Director