I’m about to offer something that I expect to come across as silly, even outright ludicrous. But I suppose that’s the way I roll.

I personally like the recent song by Walk the Moon, entitled Shut Up and Dance. It starts off in a U2-esque way with guitar delay, the bass guitar is run through a distortion pedal, and the song is simply full of energy. I offered to my wife that it would make a good running song. I get the feeling she didn’t necessarily agree.

I will say that the music video is a little odd – it makes you think the it was produced in 1987. Still, as I said, I do love the energy in the song. It truly makes me want to move, to dance.

Yet, even more, listening to the song over the weekend, I started to sense a message that I think we could easily find on the lips of God. That message is simply that of the main hook line in the chorus: “Shut up and dance with me!”

God communicating: “Shut up and dance with me!”

Yeah, I know. Crazy!

But here’s what I have to offer: While we can get so caught up in our theologizing, philosophizing, and liturgizing (and I am involved in all 3 of these), sometimes we need to simply shut up and dance, dance with God. All that stuff can get in the way of what it means to embrace childlike faith. As one author put it, “We’ve simply grown older than God himself.”

Again, I do not disregard theology, study, liturgy, spiritual disciplines, etc. All are important. But sometimes we just need to stop all the other stuff and dance, celebrate, let loose. Matter of fact, for most of us, it would be a spiritual discipline to actually celebrate! I know it’s true of me – and I’m one of the one who believes dancing is ok!

So, perhaps we just might hear the voice of God whisper to us, or shout, “Shut up and dance with me. Here I am. I love to celebrate, celebrate with you. A whole community enveloped in the songs of rejoicing I have been singing from eternity before and will continue to sing for eternity future. Join the song, join this dance with me.”

Are we ready?