“I Will Be More Undignified than This”

Dipping back into the archives from my old blog, and 2024 me needed this lesson:

It’s not your job to decide how to make God look good.

This observation came from 2 Samuel, when David brings the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem, and he’s out in the street dancing and praising God wildly. He comes home and his wife says, “Wow, that’s not very dignified behavior for the king.”And David replies:

“And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight.” (2 Samuel 6:22)

Which made me wonder: how often are we more worried about looking dignified (or curated and filtered) instead of just doing what God is leading us to do?

Not even because of the natural fear and pride that makes us want to avoid looking silly, but because we think in our heads that we need to act a certain way for others to take God seriously.

A lot of times when I have something about the Bible or about Jesus that I want to share, a little voice in my head says, “oohh, that’s a little cringey. We shouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t want people to roll their eyes at the serious truth of God’s Word because of the way we share it.”

I suppose that’s true once in a while – just because we’re sharing about Jesus doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about the quality – but I don’t think it’s true as often as my brain tells me it is.

There is a time to use wisdom and strategy to share the gospel, but we can’t use our “strategy” as an excuse to avoid the possibility of looking a little silly.

Paul says that God uses the foolishness of preaching to share the message of Jesus.

Our responsibility is to share God’s truth and love shamelessly; God is the one who makes it bear fruit.

We might say a hundred things that seem a little over the top or cheesy or cringey to the majority of the audience, but if one thing we say resonates with one person, it’s all worth it.

And besides, David wasn’t even trying to get other people’s attention. He was just praising God with his whole heart and not caring who saw.

Because the most powerful testimony is to simply let other people see your own relationship with God.

They might think you’re a little weird. They might think you’re just putting on an act to look more spiritual.

Let them think that – the more you fall in love with Jesus, the more that love will overflow into visible praise, dignified or not.