Transparent Christian Magazine

In Africa, church is dancing.  Jump, twirl, kick, move from side to side, till you’re sweaty and sore – and even then, you don’t want to stop. Sure, there is a message and a greeting and most of the other parts of a “normal” service, but what you remember when you come away is the dancing: People on every side moving in unison to praise songs, all tiring themselves in worship of the Most High. Seems to me like how church should be.

My experience came three years ago while on a mission trip to a Mozambican orphanage. We spent two weeks living side by side with the children, and it was incredible. My time there taught me many things, but perhaps the most influential was seeing the profound joy of a people living in such materialistic poverty. Church climaxed the expression of their joy.

While there, we joined in the dancing. My favorite move: hike one leg up, pump both arms downward toward your lifted leg, bounce to the side. They’d do this two times one direction, then two times the other, repeating the motion. I’d never seen it done in the States, but it is great. Maybe you have to see it to get it…and maybe the fullness of the delight in the African’s smiles is the same: You have to see it to get it.

Joy. The dictionary says it’s “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.” I like that definition. We danced at the orphanage in Mozambique, Africa because we thought on Jesus, the ultimate “something exceptionally good or satisfying.” He is the source of joy. The author of Psalm 43 calls him by name as “God our exceeding joy.”

I desire joy and to choose joy, but still I wallow in “unfair” or “not-my-way” circumstances far too often.

In the book of Philippians, Paul admonishes the church to “rejoice” four times, and four other times models for them by saying he is rejoicing in his circumstances. Dig a little deeper and we find that Paul’s circumstances are prison, chained to a guard 24 hours a day. In Philippians 4:4 he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I’ll say it again: Rejoice!” Why would he have to say it again if it’s not something that must be chosen — and not something easily chosen at that.

And if Paul in chains accepted his plot and still looked outward to tell others to rejoice, how much more can I?

I ONCE HAD A BOSS WHO WAS VERY ANGRY AND TYPED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. It was annoying. Every email, all caps and no greetings: Just do this, do that, the end. I believe he is angry at life, and in thinking about it, I realize this is an extreme contradiction. If life is a gift and a blessing, if we could lose it at any moment, how can we be mad at it? Or perhaps we should ask why we would be. My boss is an extreme of “the angry at life,” and if I’m honest, I know I am somewhere in between. We do not appreciate what we have; we do not think on the “exceptionally good or satisfying.” We act as though we are imprisoned and impoverished.

May we today make the choice to rejoice like the Africans at church, like Paul in prison – as we were made to do.

Allie Davis