Snow

And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. (2 Samuel 6:14 NLT)

A fall of snow overnight a week last Thursday. Nor very much where we live, but enough to exacerbate the icy path problems. Our elderly and rather lazy pet Westie comes alive when there’s snow about. He sheds many years and becomes a puppy again. Running up and down snow drifts, tobogganing with his nose. Rolling on his back. Biting at the snow, throwing it up in the air. His sheer exuberance is a joy to watch. David had a similar but much more significant, outburst of excitement, of exuberance when the Ark of God was repatriated after its capture and incarceration in the land of the Philistines. He was so taken with the event that he didn’t care what people thought – he abandoned himself in worship before the Lord. Much to his wife’s chagrin!

O Lord. The British reserve, seemingly inbred from birth in our culture, in so many of us, can be a terrible constraint. The nearest I get to David’s outward expression of worship is in private. In my “inner parts”. Perhaps more visibly in my lonely prayer walks as dawn is breaking. But not on the spiritual Richter scale like David’s. For all of us, I’m sure God understands our reticence but perhaps sometimes He wants us to abandon ourselves in worship to Him. After all, one day when we Christians join Him in Heaven, we won’t be able to hold ourselves back.