fool for You.

I made it through the rest of 2 Samuel today, and I think I love David so much because reading about his life is a little like watching an episode of Family Guy. Every few pages, he breaks out in song. I respect that kind of musicality. The rest of it is nothing like Family Guy. At all. But, as God is a better story-teller than Seth McFarlane, I'll stick in.

Also every few pages, I have a new favorite story, or person of the Old Testament. Again, I'm probably wrong about most of them. Firstly, these people flip-flop like John Kerry in '04. You never quite know who's going to end up repentant. And sometimes, stuff that I thought happened one way, happened a whole other way--I just don't know enough of the context. Finally, there are like fifty-millionty of these peeps. And they share names, crazy-style, like "Ashley" in 1985. Having said that, my prospective first-born should be glad that I'm not going through this OT mania during pregnancy. Because every couple of pages, I'm thinking something like, "Abiathar! Now that'd be an interesting name..."

But I like David just fine. He ticked me off in that business with Bathsheba, but he probably tore his robes and put dust on his head, so we're cool again. I love how freely he worships. He's not afraid to sing aloud, or to dance in the streets, in praise of God. That's incredible. I think I'm making a good Sunday if I can actually hear myself singing--let alone singing loud enough for anyone else to hear. And this fool is out there break-dancing unto the Lord on a dusty road to Jerusalem.

I was reading today about how God struck down Uzzah for touching the ark. David kinda freaks, and refuses to take the ark back to Jerusalem, giving it instead to a Gittite. The Gittite's house gets blessed wildly, so David decides to horn in on the action, and moves the ark to a tent in his city, dancing all the way. The interesting part to me is the exchange between Michal and David. She basically thinks he's a lewd idiot, and tells him so, and he says: "I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes."

Two things. Firstly, David Crowder is a poser. He totally ripped that line. Great song, though, and now that I understand the reference, the song makes so much more sense. Secondly, King David puts his moxie where his mouth is. He, unlike Crowder, is no poser. Again, and again, he breaks out into this obliviously joyful praise to God. And I am so, so jealous of that.

So much of the time, I feel joy, and I keep it to myself. I constrain it, silently praising. Saying, in my heart, "Father, you know." Of course, He does know. But I wonder if sometimes, He'd like me to show Him anyway, for both our sakes. I wonder if in the act of praising joyously, my joy, and His glory, are both intensified. To say nothing of the encouragement to others.

So much of the time, I want to raise my hands in worship. I sing, and praise, and pray, and I feel inside that the natural response to His power is in fact this gesture of submission and thankfulness. A gesture so foreign to me. So I keep my hands where they are, worried about what the people around me will think. Though, by the way, I more likely stick out for not responding, in that crowd. I'm just so painfully self-conscious. I want to smile, to sing aloud, to pray aloud, to erase all the people around me, and meet my Lord. But I can't, not in church. David doesn't have that problem.

He has this unshakable sense of God's sovereignty and goodness, and his praise just then spills out of him in unstoppable torrents of joy and wonder, and thankfulness.

I want that.