“I HAVE TO DANCE!”
I suddenly felt the need to stand up from the table and scream those words as our team sat around, sipping on our morning coffee and discussing with our ministry contact Kaupo what our roles looked like that day.
My team is living in a church this month in Võru, Estonia, and we do something different every day. We’ve been a part of three camps, help with the youth group, participate in church outreaches, etc. On this particular morning, Kaupo told us about how the church took donated items and set them up in their sanctuary and sold them to the public for really cheap. It’s a twofold ministry—one to allow the public access to clothes that wouldn’t break the bank, and second to bring the public inside the church building for more than just Easter and Christmas. He asked us to have short 3-minute messages for the crowds to give one every hour. As soon as he finished explaining, I looked at my team and told them how badly I needed to dance. If you’ve experienced the urgings of the Holy Spirit inside you, then you’ll understand this “need” to dance. It was like the very core of me would absolutely die if I didn’t dance after giving a short message about how Christianity isn’t boring, but rather beautiful, multifaceted and fun! My team gave me the go ahead, and I went to pick out a song.
As I began shuffling through my Lecrae, Group 1 Crew and Family Force 5, I started to giggle as I thought about how my dance would be received. For those of you who don’t know about Estonia, let me brief you quickly.
Estonians are culturally a quiet and reserved people. They tend to not like loud music, public dancing or high intensity things. Children here don’t like dancing to loud music or even playing tag. So here I was, looking for a rap song with bumpin’ bass and was about to Holy Spirit dance in front of them. “I must be crazy,” I told myself as I finally settled on a song choice.
I prayed a quick prayer, something along the lines of, “It’s all for you Jesus. Take my mouth and give me your words. I just want to worship you.” Then suddenly it was my turn. I almost started laughing as I walked up to the microphone because it felt like I was going to burst apart at the seams with joy. I gave a short, interpreted message about how I used to think Christianity was boring and I went to clubs where I felt like my dancing was more accepted. I told them that God made me perfectly, and that he loves the way he made me. He created me with a passion for dance, and I wanted to show them.
Once I hit play on my iPod to “Broken” by Lecrae ft. Kari Jobe, it felt like the air got thick. I was so in love with Jesus, and I was just expressing that the best way I knew how. My teammates later told me that the Holy Spirit’s presence was heavy in the air. When I would catch glimpses of the crowd, I saw multiple different reactions ranging from shock, joy, ignoring and intrigued. Two in particular nearly leaped out of the crowd from my perspective. I watched as my message and dance encouraged one woman, while the other woman seemed immobile. I saw the Holy Spirit doing something in her, and she was fixated on me.
After the song, my team leader Chenea’ saw the same fixated woman and felt the Holy Spirit tell her, “That woman is going to be healed today in her left knee.” After a couple minutes, Kaupo approached Chenea’ and said, “This woman need prayer for her left leg. Let’s go pray for her.” Chenea’ felt led to ask if Jordan and I would come as well, and we all went to the prayer room.
Immediately I started getting downloads from God to tell this woman that he missed her and wanted her “to come home.” I was waiting for a moment to slip this in while Kaupo asked her what specifically she wanted us to pray for.
“I want you to know,” I started calmly, “that when I was dancing, I noticed you. The Holy Spirit had a hold on you and his anointing on you was apparent. I also feel like God is telling me that he misses you and he wants you to come home.”
She nodded slowly with a shocked expression.
“How’s your relationship with Jesus?” Chenea asked.
“Well,” the woman looked up in thought, “I haven’t been to church in 10 years.”
“No, no, no,” Chenea said shaking her head and waving her hands in front of her, “I don’t care about that. How is your RELATIONSHIP with Jesus? Church is nice, but you don’t need a building to have a relationship.”
The woman then launched into a short synapsis about how the church had attacked her and her husband, and they had abandoned their faith in God.
“There’s a story in Luke 15,” Jordan began, “about a son who ran away from home, and his father longed to have his son return home.” He continued to tell her the story of the prodigal son.
“At the end of that chapter,” I continued after Jordan, “the father throws a HUGE party to celebrate the return of his son, and when you return home, to a relationship with Jesus, the heavens will erupt with a party in celebration of your return!”
“How did you hurt your knee?” Chenea felt prompted to ask the woman.
“I was kneeling down to straighten a rug,” the woman explained.
“I feel like God is telling you,” Chenea continued, “that you can’t do anything without him, not even kneel to straighten a rug, and your knee won’t be healed until you kneel only before him. I feel like we all need to leave this room and leave you in here to kneel before God and return back to him.”
We surrounded her, laid our hands on her, and began praying for her leg. She felt a heat on her knee during our prayers, which were more aimed toward healing her heart than her knee. When we took our hands off, she felt her knee cooling. We left her alone in the room to dedicate her life back to Christ, and about 5 minutes later, she came walking down the stairs with a giant smile on her face.
“You’re not limping!” Chenea exclaimed to the woman smiling from ear to ear.
“Ok, now we disciple her,” Kaupo ushered us towards the table near the kitchen.
“At first,” the woman began, “I didn’t understand why I was in that room alone. I wondered what I was doing there and thought about how weird it was. Then I decided to kneel like you said, and suddenly a power came over me and I felt it all down my spine! I began crying and I did what you said.”
She went and got her husband, who was waiting for her outside, and we discipled the two of them. They told us about all the hurt the church caused them 10 years prior, and how they just couldn’t look for another church. They had completely turned away from Jesus, and began falling apart. The woman told us she had been crying every day for the past two weeks, and just didn’t feel like she could go anymore. We encouraged them, prayed for them, and pointed them back to the truth. It was heartbreaking listening to their struggles and deception, but overall, the Lord redeemed their story.
Have you allowed God to redeem your story of rebellion? Have you confessed your sins publicly and turned away from them? Have you knelt before something other than the lover of your soul? Let the power of God wash over you. He wants to heal your heart, because your outward situation pales in comparison to the condition of your heart. Free yourself, and let God take back what the enemy has stolen from you!
