My maternal grandfather was a railroad engineer and a Presbyterian elder. During the 1930s he had three teenaged children. It was his custom on many Saturday nights to invite all the local teenagers into his large living room for a dance. He would hire a little three-piece band and roll back the rugs. Grandfather was thrilled that the teenaged girls would invite him to dance and then would break in on each other. Some of the other elders at the church did not share Grandfather's enthusiasm for those dances. They began to criticize him. Word got back to Grandfather. He went to the next elders' meeting loaded for bear. He said, "I understand that some of you don't like the little Saturday night dances at my house. Well, let me tell you something. I would rather have teenagers in my living room having good clean fun than off running around unsupervised. Now if you want my resignation as an elder, just send me word, but the dances will continue." Grandfather heard no further criticism.

Dancing is certainly biblical. King David danced in a parade as the Ark of God was returned to the city of Jerusalem. The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that "There is a time to mourn and a time to dance." One time a Methodist bishop was asked, "Can Methodists dance?" He replied, "Well, some can and some can't." I have a friend who has been a marriage counselor for thirty years. He says that he has never known a couple to split up who regularly danced together.

Psalm 30, our text for today, has something to say about dancing. The author, King David, tells us his personal story that moves from proud self-sufficiency to lonely distance from God and then ends up on such a joyful note that he feels like dancing.

First, in verse six, David confesses his proud self-sufficiency. "As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved." In other words, David felt utterly secure in what he had earned and built with his own hands. Haven't we all felt like that at times? We're doing real well, accumulating possessions at a heady pace, making a good salary, with a good bit of insurance. My goodness, look how our stocks have soared just in the last five years! Our security becomes almost independent of God. That is the very point when we get into trouble. Prosperity, not hard times, is the great enemy of faith.

Look next to the latter part of verse seven. David in his self- sufficiency drifts from God's presence. He becomes aware of the awful absence of God. "Thou didst hide thy face; I was dismayed." Have you ever felt the absence of God? Sometimes it is because we have drifted away from God, but not always. Sometimes life can break your heart, and the hurt is so deep that we can't see God through the pain. Even Jesus cried out from a cruel cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Of course, God had not forsaken him, but it seemed that way.

There is a bird in Europe called the chaf finch. It's about the size and color of a robin. It has a beautiful song, and people keep these birds in their homes to hear them sing. But the chaf finch has a peculiar characteristic--it can forget how to sing. If it does not learn how to sing again, it becomes depressed and dies. There is only one way for it to relearn. The bird must be taken back into the woods where the wild birds sing. Christians sometime forget how to sing and dance. Then we need to gather with other Christians whose hearts still ring with God's melody. Sometimes during Holy Communion, God mysteriously re- teaches us chaf finches how to sing and dance.

Verse nine of Psalm 30 brings the psalmist to another stage. He tries to bargain with God. Have you ever done that? The psalmist says to God (this is a Bouknight translation but it's pretty close) "If I die you will lose a good advertiser. You better look out for me because that will be good business for you." Have you ever tried to bargain with God? It sounds like this: Lord, if you'll just fix our marriage, I'll give 10% of our income to your work. Lord, if you'll get my teenager off drugs, we will be faithful church members. Lord, if you'll get us out of financial trouble, I will even teach the Junior Highs . But God doesn't play "Let's make a deal." He doesn't bargain with us. His righteousness is not negotiable.

In verse ten of Psalm 30 the psalmist comes to his senses. He simply throws himself on the mercy of God. "Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be thou my helper." In other words, no excuses, no deals, no bargains; just a humble believer bowing before a powerful, gracious God. Are you aware that most of us are not fair with God? We are relatively blind to most of the blessings God sends. Perhaps the Evil One puts blinders on us. We take the good things for granted, assuming that we deserve them. I mean the health we have, the fact that we almost never worry about the necessities of life. We live in America with all its inherited freedoms. Someone cared enough to lead us to Jesus. We gather here in church without the slightest fear that the government is taking our names and might harass us because we were here. Every day brings hundreds of blessings that we take for granted.

But we give God plenty of credit when problems come our way; like a child's developmental problems, a failed marriage, cancer, the loss of a job, or even being victimized by crime. I saw a cartoon somewhere that showed two angels talking. One said to the other, "I can't believe those people on earth. They take for granted sunshine and warm breezes, but refer to a tornado as an act of God."

A few months ago I had a cyst surgically removed. The lab did a biopsy on it; the report was negative. Looking back on it, I felt so confident of what the report would be that I was not particularly grateful. But if that report had come back positive, I would have fussed with God big-time. I am ashamed to admit that I have heard myself whining something like this: "Lord, I have tried to serve you faithfully all these years; I can't believe you are letting this or that happen to me. I thought I was your pet, or at least in the top 20 percent!"

The climax of Psalm 30 comes when King David realized this glorious fact: Even when God seems absent, He is powerfully present. Even when I desert God in foolish self-sufficiency, God does not desert me. No situation is ever so bleak that God cannot redeem it. When the psalmist realized the width and depth and height of God's grace, he exclaimed in verses eleven and twelve: "Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may praise thee and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to thee forever." And then the psalmist began to dance.

Let me suggest that you conduct a spiritual memory tour for yourself. Search out in your past five occasions when God was especially close, perhaps when you received your first Bible or were confirmed; perhaps in moments before surgery when you reached out desperately for God and found Him to be powerfully present; maybe that day when your beloved first said, "I love you too"; perhaps that moment when you first held your newborn child in your arms; perhaps the concluding service of an Emmaus weekend; maybe one night in a revival; or perhaps listening to your four-year-old call your name in prayer. Perhaps on your list will be that night when you escorted your daughter down the aisle for her wedding. Just before you started, she turned to you, kissed you, and said, "Remember, Daddy, nobody will ever take your place," and you almost crumbled. Make your list of the top five. Then occasionally, especially in low moments, take a stroll down spiritual memory lane. When you consider what God has already done, you will be convinced that He can do it again. And you'll feel like dancing!

I know a lady in Myrtle Beach named Jeanne. One day she lost her wedding ring and was utterly distressed. Her husband said, "You'd better say a prayer." Jeanne replied, "I already have." She turned the house upside down, and retraced her steps over the past week; but without success. She thought about running an ad in the local paper but her friends told her that she was wasting her time. A few days later an ad appeared in the paper, placed there by a Mrs. Vada Marden who had found a ring in the parking lot of her granddaughter's school, which happens to be the same school that Jeanne's daughter attends. Jeanne described the ring over the phone; Mrs. Marden said, "It's definitely yours. Come over and pick it up." Jeanne felt like dancing!

When you come to the table of Holy Communion today, do what the old Gospel song advises: "Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings; see what God has done." When you focus on how wonderful God has been, in good times and in bad, you'll feel like dancing!