Dance With the One that Brung Ya!

Have you ever heard the slang saying that you always need to “Dance with the One that Brung ya?”  Well… I have and I learned a valuable lesson when someone close to my heart told me that!  Let me explain…

Piper and I enjoyed dancing together, beginning with our first date at a high school dance in 1970.  I came from a family that loved to dance that was initiated with my mom and dad.  They had met at a USO dance in New York City at the end of the war and had become pretty good dance partners… and especially with the Swing, Lindy or Lindy Hop… as it was variously known at that time!

The eventually got married in New York and after a few years moved back to my dad’s home town of Richmond California.  While there he completed his education at San Francisco State College and began teaching at the new Herbert Slater Middle School (then Junior High) in the growing North (of the San Francisco) Bay Area city of Santa Rosa.

My folks were devout Catholics and quite social and quickly got involved with different church organizations like the Knights of Columbus and The Italian Catholic Federation.  And as you can imagine… they loved to head out to the dance floor whenever any of these organizations held a special event and or dinner.

Piper’s family, on the other hand, were devout (American) Baptists and while they weren’t necessarily against dancing… they and their church just never engaged in the activity.  It wasn’t until a few years later when Piper and I entered into the world of Pentecostalism where we learned that dancing in those denominations was pretty much taboo and strictly prohibited.  But that didn’t stop Piper and I and we still enjoyed getting out on the dance floor at weddings or when attending some of the Catholic organization events with my folks through the years.

During the first years that I worked at Hewlett Packard, beginning in 1980, the company would hold a couple of “Beer Busts” on campus after work hours a few times a year, in order to celebrate company achievements and allow the employees to have a good time.  As the name implies… there was usually lots of beer, soft drinks and food available, along with a live band to which folks could dance to.

Well… one night at a Beer Bust, the music was blaring and it seemed like everyone except me and a few others, were on the dance floor having fun.  So, being as I liked to dance, I innocently asked a gal I knew who worked in another area close to the shop that I supervised to dance.  Hummmm big mistake!  Not that anything happened except that we danced a couple of dances and I went home.  Well, as usual, Piper was waiting up for me and I filled her in on my day that ended with the company Beer Bust… and all was fine until… I mentioned that I danced a couple of dances…

Ah Oh!  And yep… that my friends is the moment I learned ALL about the saying that you ALWAYS and ONLY “Dance with the One that Brung Ya!”  Piper was not a screamer or one to get physically angry… but she definitely let it be known that I WAS NOT to dance with any other woman but HER!  And you know?  I respected her wishes and never did dance with another gal again… except for our two girls!

She loved me and was always protective of me and our marriage… as I was to her and our marriage as well.  Without a doubt, it was that automatic response of love that sent me into the protection of her mode when she got sick.

Well… that memory and the saying that you always “Dance with the One that Brung Ya!” popped up in my mind again, just the other day when I was in the midst of my daily Bible Study… I was reading about a time when Jesus was teaching the multitudes and I suddenly realized that Jesus was basically telling the crowd to always “Dance with the One that Brung Ya!”  Now, don’t get me wrong… He was not talking about the actual activity of dancing, but of the deeper meaning of that idiom that encourages us,

“To remain loyal to the person that helped you reach a certain achievement or brought you into a particular situation.” (thefreedictionary.com)

In the conclusion of His statements here in Matthew 6:34, Jesus taught,

“Stop worrying about how the future will turn out, don’t weigh yourselves down with imaginary future problems that haven’t even happened yet, and trust God with your future.” (The Remedy Translation) 

In line with my last blog post,* this is how we learn to successfully prohibit and/or refuse to allow certain negative situations, traits, attitudes and beliefs into our lives.  Jesus is telling us to always “Dance with the One that Brung Ya!”  He is emphatically encouraging you and me to STOP allowing ourselves to worry about the future - by prohibiting (or wasting time by) dwelling on “imaginary future problems that haven’t even happened yet!”

Then He drops the mic… and boldly declares (I believe with a big smile on His face), that instead… all we simple need do is to, “TRUST GOD WITH YOUR FUTURE!”

Now, I’ll be honest with you!  In order to activate this level of trust in your life… and especially on a regular basis… it takes lots and lots of consistent and regular practice!  It is a lifelong activity that you have to continually check yourself on.  It doesn’t just happen overnight and it doesn’t become a natural default in your life unless you stay on top of it and stay focused on Him and what His Word says about the various situations in life that you face…

It means that you have to stay alert and faithful to ALWAYS “Dance with the One that Brung Ya!”

Have a great weekend… DANCE a lot (with the RIGHT partner)… and keep EXPECTING God’s BEST for your life!

 

* http://pjberruto.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-toad.html