dance off.

Be still before the LORD
and wait patiently for Him...
Psalm 37:7

So not only am I a fixer and a do-er, but I'm also a recovering perfectionist. And let me tell you, those perfectionist tendences are fighting with everything they have as I engage in this process of learning to sit and just be. The perfectionist doesn't like the unresolved. It treats anything left undone like a cancer. "There MUST be a solution, and it MUST be discovered NOW. Inaction is sinful," it says. Hmmm, arguable. But regardless of the sin issue, God does not actually call us to inaction when He tells us to be still and wait patiently.

Hear me out: not only is there is great value in being still before the Lord, it's commanded several times in the Bible. It is not to be ignored, especially when everything in us tells us to run around frantically trying to fix things. Being still before God allows us to hear His voice and receive His strength, clarity, and overwhelming love. It's absolutely necessary to survive, as God says in Isaiah 30:15--"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength..."

But being still is not the only thing instructed in Psalm 37. The other part is "wait patiently." You might think that this means to sit until things get resolved. Not a very practical plan. But actually, the original Hebrew term for "wait patiently" means a "slow dance." This is amazing to me: God invites us to be still before Him--to lay all our burdens down--and then to dance with Him.

God is offering us unbroken, beautiful partnership in the midst of the unresolved.

When someone you love does something that annoys you, or has a legitimate issue that they must deal with in their lives, do you hold them at arm's length until they get their act together? Or do you continue in relationship with them, loving them through the ups and downs of life? This is the nature of the dance that God invites us to join--a fluidity of motion, a tender partnership that moves gracefully around all the little piles of unresolved stuff.

And I find that it is through keeping up with Him in the dance that my stuff gets worked out. For me, a lot of my problems are rooted in not fully understanding or receiving His love for me. But when I'm dancing with Him, I can't really look inward so much, or else I'll trip. And the fact that He offers this kind of intimacy to me all the time, no matter what is going on, is healing me beyond what I can express.

My friend Josh says that you can't speed up your recovery; you can only slow it down. For me, slowing down my recovery as a perfectionist would mean continuing to try and fix myself. And I just simply can't do it.

I'd much rather dance.