Dancing with God

...and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. John 17. 6 - 19

In the gospel appointed for yesterday, we hear Jesus praying for his disciples, asking God to guide them and protect them, to unify them and keep them from the evil one, now that Jesus will no longer be in the world. The most beautiful line in this prayer for me is the one above, when Jesus says he is praying for these things for his disciples so "that they may have my joy made complete in themselves." Imagine being filled with the joy of Jesus!

This passage brought to mind for me this morning a question I was asked recently. How and where in your life is disruption an invitation to dance with God?

I have spent some time reflecting on this question and discovered that with each disruption, the dance only gets more and more and more beautiful, more and more joyous...not because the disruptions diminish, not because the end result is always good, but because the more I lean into God, the Great Joyous Dancer, the more I am filled with the joy of what it means to be claimed by the Holy One. And once we have tasted that joy, there is no turning back, it has been "made complete" in us and within that joy the truth "all will be well, all manner of things will be well" rests clearly.

So dance with God, my friends, that the joy of Jesus will be made complete in you.