A dance or a sword?

You should never give a sword to a man who can't dance.
-Old Celtic Proverb.

This quote really moved me this week when I read it in The Barbarian Way by Erwin Mcmanus.
It spoke to me about joy and being a man that first knows how to dance not just war. Being a leader who has the dance at the center of his life not the sword. The first miracle of Jesus was making the best wine around. He started his ministry with the dance of God.
Joy was the christening image of this new era, new gospel...new man.

Joy is one of the most elusive graces to me...but a song the Lord has been desiring to teach me to sing for a while. It began a year or more ago with a great season of spiritual renewal, a sweet time of refreshment and prophetic intensity that extended for months. Within that time the Lord poured new wine into my weary and dead soul. He fed me with fresh bread and breathed hope into me about the future. It was one of the most exhilarating times in my spiritual history. For a short season I tasted a joy that I had only sipped on previously, it was deeply satisfying.

Little would I know the darkness that would engulf me in the following season. The previous season became a frightfully dim guiding star that has barely helped me navigate the last handful of months. When I read this proverb the Lord tenderly touched my heart again, like seeing land after a long windless sailing.

Yesterday I sat thinking about this proverb and wondered to myself...When will the Lord give me a sword. When will God see a dance in my heart?

That very afternoon this ax came in the mail from my Dad.

God you have my ear...