Nadine and I went to church last week and said hello to all the friends we have gotten to know over the years.  We took our regular seats in the front row to the right side of the stage, beginning with the fourth seat from the middle row–I know I made fun of people who need to sit in the same seat at church week after week after month after year and now I’m doing it.  Everything in the service seemed the same with familiar songs we had sung, Joe Webb the worship director with the worship singers, and friendly faces in the seats across from us.

Everything that is except a little girl on the other side of the stage who began to dance right in front of the stage.  At first I was a little annoyed at her distracting my attention away from the worship service.  But she was only 3-4 and she was having a wonderful time and my annoyed thoughts quickly were erased.  I began to notice something else that caught my fancy.

She was focused solely upon the people on the stage (the worship singers) and especially one in particular.  It was her daddy playing the acoustic guitar on the left side of the stage. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her daddy.  She didn’t look anywhere else but at her daddy.  Her eyes were laser-focused.  And she was dancing with all of her might.

I began to think of King David when he was bringing the arc back to Jerusalem.  In II Samuel 6:14 it says that David was dancing with all of his might.  His focus was on worshipping his Father in heaven and didn’t care what anyone else felt.  He had laser-focused attention on his Father.

I began to ponder how often I have that kind of passion and total focus on worshipping my Lord and Savior.  Not nearly enough.  This little girl taught me something that morning even in her dancing.  I would love to have that passion and focus for my heavenly Father on a consistent basis, and am beginning to pray that the love and passion I saw that morning would characterize my life this year.

On this journey of 2016, God has and will place people in your life to teach us what he wants from us.  Make sure that your annoyance at times doesn’t block the real message of life.