{"id":27,"date":"2013-08-11T15:10:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T15:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=27"},"modified":"2013-08-11T15:10:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-11T15:10:00","slug":"gods-great-dance-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=27","title":{"rendered":"God’s Great Dance Floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘I feel alive….I come alive…I am alive….on God’s great dance floor…’<\/p>\n

So went the lyrics of one of the tunes in amazing Impact this year at New Wine. The first time we sang this, I kind of shrank a little bit inside. But….I thought. But, this is for people who can dance.<\/i> It’s for all those guys up the front who jump up and down and do that stuff I used to do when I had lungs that kind of worked. It’s even for those embarassing Dad Dancers and the Liturgical Stylee ones with flags. But for me? No, I am sitting here. I’m not even standing up. I can jiggle my feet a little bit. But alive? On God’s great Dance Floor?<\/p>\n

So yep, there’s part of me hanging on to the fact that I used to be out there giving it my all. I had energy and I wanted to express praise in going for it. I mean, I had rhythm. I got Highly Commended in my Jive and Ballroom exams. But now I can’t do it. And it’s not fair. And it’s not right. And I don’t feel alive on God’s great dance floor. So hmmmphhh. <\/p>\n

Huh.<\/p>\n

But then I did that start-looking-beyond-youself thing. You know, the one where I stop thinking it’s all about MEEE. And started thinking about what it really meant. And what it could mean for lovely Joyce in hospital and lovely Mum with arthritis and lovely Paul in his wheelchair. Why am I sometimes so slow to realise that things are not always utterly literal and bound by face value? I had just delivered a seminar on The Secret of Contentment (available here if anyone would like to hear it<\/a>) and yet here I was, wallowing in the same old discontent of me not being able to Do What I Want. <\/p>\n

When I had finally moved along from my self, I thought about what God’s great dance floor actually was. God’s great dance floor isn’t a strip of slightly sweaty red carpet in the Impact venue. It isn’t a place where people can physically jump up and down and wave flags and stuff. It goes so so much deeper than this. I love it as a concept, actually, because God’s great dance floor is where we can all be free to be who we are created to be. And all, whether physically able or not, can dance like no one is watching. It’s a place of freedom, where we can be reminded that we are alive in Christ, we are fulfilled in knowing and worshipping God, we are fully ourselves in the time we are fully surrendered. God’s great dance floor is where we can sit, taking in awesome beauty, or lie, surrounded by enthralling presence, or walk onwards, knowing we are not alone.<\/p>\n

And God’s great dance floor is a reminder of the perfection that will eventually be, the wholeness of what we will be. We don’t know what that will look like, but know it will be the most amazing thing we could ever experience. It’s beyond imagination.<\/p>\n

So I sang my heart out for the rest of the week and stood on that dance floor with the dad dancers and the flags. I even tapped my feet a bit <let’s not go overboard here, after all>. In my spirit I was on that dance floor in every way I would love to be.<\/p>\n

So many of us are not whole, we are not healed, we live in the pain of broken bodies or the pain of our difficult situations. But God offers us so very much even in that pain, so much of himself, having known pain beyond our comprehension. We can all be on God’s great dance floor, we can all be freed in the midst of our own pain to know the God who loves us overspillingly and recklessly.<\/p>\n

So Keeeeep Dancing….<\/p>\n

P.S I’ll be blogging that seminar as a series after a few people have asked me for it in writing, as it is far too long winded for one post, so I hope it’s helpful to you. The whole premise of it is finding contentment in suffering, in challenging situations in life, and what contentment actually means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘I feel alive….I come alive…I am alive….on God’s great dance floor…’ So went the lyrics of one of the tunes in amazing Impact this year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53,4,44,27,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancing","category-god","category-healing","category-newwine","category-pain"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8T2j8-r","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24,"url":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=24","url_meta":{"origin":27,"position":0},"title":"Where is God when it doesn’t hurt?","author":"liz","date":"November 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been pondering on this one a little of late. Over the summer, after I came out of hospital in early June, I felt considerably better. For a considerable amount of time - around two months in all. I had some glimpses into 'normality', whatever that may be - life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "dancing"","block_context":{"text":"dancing","link":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?cat=53"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=12","url_meta":{"origin":27,"position":1},"title":"A Walk Through Sacred","author":"liz","date":"August 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"On the last but one night at New Wine 2016, I took a walk through the camp.A normal stroll, an everyday thing. An achievement for me, certainly, but it turned out to be so much more, because the ordinary hurtled me headlong into the sacred.It was a balmy evening, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "donuts"","block_context":{"text":"donuts","link":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?cat=24"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/13906601_1325489704154132_2495631917921518764_n-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":211,"url":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=211","url_meta":{"origin":27,"position":2},"title":"Worth beyond Words","author":"liz","date":"August 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"You see the raw edges of humanity from a hospital bed. The lady who doesn't know where she is, or who anyone is, her reaction to the world a long, frightened sob. The chap wandering into our ward in his dishevelled pyjamas, scratching his head. 'I'm lost,' he says, summing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"burden\"","block_context":{"text":"burden","link":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?tag=burden"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/940532_53554104-300x240.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1479,"url":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=1479","url_meta":{"origin":27,"position":3},"title":"Polished Arrows – review and interview with Jenny Sanders","author":"liz","date":"June 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I read a lot of Christian books, and it\u2019s not often I find one with a new allegory for Christian living so fresh and alive that it challenges me and encourages me in a new way. I don\u2019t know a whole lot about the process of crafting arrows - or\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Polished-Arrows_FULL.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Polished-Arrows_FULL.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Polished-Arrows_FULL.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Polished-Arrows_FULL.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1024,"url":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=1024","url_meta":{"origin":27,"position":4},"title":"Recital of Love: Interview with Keren-Dibbens Wyatt","author":"liz","date":"November 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I am so delighted to have Keren on the blog today. Keren is one of the most beautiful writers I know, writing from a place of long-term chronic illness and pain. Her new book, Recital of Love, is a profound work of great beauty and depth. I know you're going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?cat=175"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Headshot-KDW.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Headshot-KDW.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Headshot-KDW.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Headshot-KDW.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Headshot-KDW.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?p=53","url_meta":{"origin":27,"position":5},"title":"Pioneers R Us!","author":"liz","date":"September 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Since the Adventurous Pair are back at school, and I no longer have the excuse of the mania of school hols and moving, I thought I had better re-start this neglected blog.I wanted to as well because I am so excited about our new life here in Priorslee. It's mixed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "children"","block_context":{"text":"children","link":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/?cat=68"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatadventure.carterclan.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}