I Will Dance in the Presence of the Lord.

Little Jesse, who is almost 2 now, loves dancing. Whenever you put on some music, he does this little wiggle and his face lights up.

We have these big dance parties in our living room where we dim the lights, put on some music, and all of us dance around the room.

He loves it!

I'm not naturally a dancer. I don't move easily. I'm self-conscious about how I look, what people might think, and whether I'm doing it "right."

And for a long time, that self-consciousness carried over into worship. On Sundays, I usually keep my praise quite "contained," and my favorite way to worship is on my own.

But then I think about David. The king of Israel, dancing before God with all his might as the ark returned to Jerusalem. Leaping and celebrating with such abandon that his wife was embarrassed.

And when she confronted him, David's response was essentially: I don't care what you think. This is for God, not for you.

There's something about joy that can't always be contained in stillness. Sometimes worship needs to move.

It's not that God requires it, but because the gladness in our hearts demands more than words. It needs expression, physical, unrestrained, without reservation.

Miriam understood this. After crossing the Red Sea, after witnessing God's deliverance, she didn't just sing, she danced. And the women followed her, celebrating with tambourines and movement because standing still didn't match what they felt.

I'm learning that worship isn't just about reverence and solemnity. Sometimes it's about joy that overflows. About letting praise move from my heart to my feet. About caring more about what God thinks than what anyone around me might say.

This doesn't mean I have to dance when I worship. But it does mean I shouldn't let self-consciousness keep me from expressing joy when it wells up.

Jesse doesn't think about any of that. He hears the music and he moves, because that's what the joy in him does. It has never once occurred to him to wonder whether he's doing it right.

Maybe that's the invitation. Not to perform, and not to worry about who might be watching, but to let the gladness God put in me actually show. He already knows my heart. He is the one who put the joy there in the first place, and He delights when it comes out.