0:00:00 - 0:00:19 I want to talk about a song by Billy Idol called Dancing With Myself. It's an older song came out in 1981. Um We're gonna look at a, a larger range of lyrics than we usually do in these. Um It, it's funny, this isn't exactly deep poetry and yet there's some pretty deep themes in this. Whether they're 0:00:19 - 0:00:44 intentional or not, doesn't really matter, but I'd extract this and link it to themes that I've spoken about. Um under the phrase, for example, dancing to the song in your heart or have made a lot of allusions to ladybugs at night, flashing their lights. Um There, there is a two way connection or flow 0:00:43 - 0:01:04 , let's say, flow in the gospel. As far as people coming to this earth. We are here for what we do for folks who have less light than us and we are here for, for things we do for folks we receive from folks with greater light than us. And then one other dimension, this dynamic is that we all start from 0:01:04 - 0:01:32 zero as babies. And so you will, you will rock it ahead towards the level of stature you had before this world was as you grow older. Um that, that's permuted through the many experiences in life and how you react to each of those. But anyway, you will get to some kind of cruising altitude and then uh 0:01:32 - 0:01:53 go from there. But, but wherever you are in the moment, there will be this relative relationship you have with those that have less light than you at the moment and those that have more light than you at the moment. And you can characterize life just from this, just from this dynamic. Uh There, there 0:01:53 - 0:02:16 are other ways of slicing it, but this is, this is vivid and important. OK. So um the more light you have in that, in the current moment, the more stratified your experience will be in terms of your interactions with others, the more light you have, the less resonance you will have with those around 0:02:15 - 0:02:35 you because they will have a lot less light, the more light you have, it's, it's a, it's an exponential distribution. And so if you, if you um well, I guess it's better to look at it in a Pareto distribution. So let's do it that way. So the more light you have, it's not just that the fewer the people 0:02:35 - 0:03:00 that are like you, it's a drastically extreme reduction. So you get a little more light, there are a lot less people like you and it continues OK, that, that just keeps compounding. So in order for you to do what you need to do to get the most joy out of life. You need to dance to the music in your heart 0:03:00 - 0:03:26 . And that's a poetic way of talking about living according to who you really are. And especially doing that, the more like Jesus you have become and you do this even when there's no one around like you and especially when there's no one around like you. The reason for this is because when you come across 0:03:26 - 0:03:50 someone who needs that, if you can't turn it on, you, you are, you are always like this or you are never like this, it's not something you can turn on and off nor could you even recognize when you need to do. So how do you know if, if the moment you need to be you is on a bus or in a grocery store or 0:03:50 - 0:04:15 you know, a random on a random day at work, you have no idea when these moments will occur, you can't see them coming. And so you have to be like this all the time uh in order to connect with the the situations that you've been sent here for. And um this goes both ways. Of course, we need to recognize 0:04:14 - 0:04:33 when a brighter light is flashing and, and we spend a lot of time talking about that. But the reverse is also true because this flow goes all through the earth at all times. And in order for the, the light to flow down. There have to be, there has to be people who are willing to dance with themselves 0:04:32 - 0:04:58 . So, in the song, we, we hit this lyric with a record selection and a mirror's reflection. I'm dancing with myself. This is so interesting. So I, I'm not gonna go into it right now, but uh uh a fruitful topic of study is to look up songs and I will be speaking about this. I may have already done. So 0:04:58 - 0:05:21 I don't know when I'm gonna publish this video. But for years, I've been learning a lot about this uh idea of songs in the gospel and you could see this and uh you, you should go look at that. But when you receive a song, which um I don't even know if I wanna try to simplify that down to sort of one 0:05:21 - 0:05:42 line because it, it would just be so restrictive compared to all the things that that means, um you can begin to dance. Now, other people might not hear that music. In fact, they, they won't, the, the better, the music is the less, the fewer the people that will hear it. Um What's this business about 0:05:41 - 0:06:09 a mirror's reflection? So some, the only way that most people are gonna hear the music is through seeing you dance to it. It's a very interesting image but that's the way it is you can speaking, speaking in, in symbols here. It's much easier to see a person dance than it is to hear the music they're 0:06:09 - 0:06:32 dancing to. That's not true in life, but it's true in terms of, I mean, in, in, it's not true in actual songs and actual dancing, but symbolically that this is how the gospel works. If you talk about a gospel song, not like the gospel songs, like gospel music, but what that means in the scriptures when 0:06:32 - 0:07:02 it talks about songs, like the song of Moses, a new song will be sung in the end times, that sort of thing that you, the world's not gonna hear that, but they can see people dancing figuratively. OK. What's this business about the mirror's reflection? Well, a person that's more like Jesus is not, is 0:07:01 - 0:07:23 not acting according to their reflection, they're acting according to what they see about Jesus and they're reconciling themselves to that and they become a reflection. So I just, I really like this idea of a record selection and the mirror's reflection. Um Well, back in the eighties music was recorded 0:07:23 - 0:07:55 on records. Uh But we read about the record of heaven, which you could think of as that a recording or a book. The Lamb's Book of Life is the recording of his character. It's the reduction of his character to words. Um So you choose that and sometimes all you have to go off of is your own life when you 0:07:55 - 0:08:17 run out of external examples of people who are more like Jesus than you all you have to go off of is the Lord inside of you. And that's enough. OK? When there's I like this one too, when there's no one else in sight in the crowded lonely night. And that s seems like an oxymoron. But as you become more 0:08:17 - 0:08:40 like the Lord, you will become more lonely. It has to be that way because there will be fewer and fewer people that you can interface with and, and as yourself, not that you're putting on some kind of uh false mask or something, it's just you, there, there is no input for that. There's no place you can 0:08:40 - 0:08:59 put it. You, you will, you will become accustomed to holding back who you really are, not in deception, but just turning down the volume of who you really are because people just can't handle it and they don't want it and they'll, they'll ask you uh literally perhaps, but also figuratively, they'll ask 0:08:59 - 0:09:28 you to tone it down because it's just too much. And so you can be in a crowded world and still be, feel completely alone. And um and there will be people all around you but no one eye to eye, there will be no one to see eye to eye with. And I like the use of the word vibration here and waiting so long 0:09:27 - 0:00:00 for my love vibration. Uh because it's this idea of resonance or reflection again, echo, ironically, an echo. Um And that's what that's what people are searching for. They're searching for the reflection of what they value. And the more like God, you become, the harder that is to find in this world. 0:00:00 - 0:10:18 So the next idea is this, this, um, nothing to lose and nothing to prove. So he's explaining, well, why wouldn't I dance? Even if I'm by myself, because there's nothing to lose and there's nothing to prove. He doesn't care what other people think. He's just interested in celebrating this music. He's 0:10:18 - 0:10:37 just having a good old time. Even if he has to do it by himself, there's nothing to lose and there's nothing to prove. I think the world would be a much better place if Christians understood that there's nothing to lose and there's nothing to prove in that sense that so most people would think that they 0:10:36 - 0:10:53 do have something to lose if they're gonna dance by themselves because they'll look like an idiot and everyone would make fun of them and you're already awkward and alone. And now it's just gonna be worse. You're increasing the distance between you and them by being yourself and yet they have nothing 0:10:53 - 0:11:18 to give you anyway. You, you only stand to gain by being yourself because at least that way you'll feel like you're being authentic and you'll tap into that, that energy. Uh, because again, you're, you're, you're attempting to live according to the record of heaven, the reflection of Jesus and who cares 0:11:18 - 0:11:40 what other people think you have everything to gain by living out what you actually think and feel and what you really want to do when you're aligned with God. That, that's, that can only be a good thing. You have a lot to lose if you don't do that, but you have nothing to lose for doing that and it 0:11:40 - 0:11:55 doesn't matter what they do to you. Jesus was very plain about this. He, he told his disciples frankly. He said, look, I'm going, they're going to do to you exactly what they've done to me. They're going to persecute you bitterly and kill you. And they're going to say that they're doing God a service 0:11:55 - 0:12:19 but do it anyway, do it anyway. Because if you don't lose your life, you can't find it. And you know, he, he was saying that it's all about discovering how he is and living how he is. And if seemingly bad things happen along the way, just forget it because it's all for your good. Every single thing is 0:12:19 - 0:12:44 for your good. And there's, there's no such thing as God's purpose is being frustrated. He, he always gets what he wants in the end. And as you're acting in that path, you will too. There, there is no alternative. It doesn't matter how impossible it seems as far as something to prove. You know, we don't 0:12:44 - 0:13:09 go out, we don't live out our lives trying to follow the example of Jesus because we're trying to prove something not to other people and not to God were being proven in the, in the s in the sense of uh improved, you know, proofing something, it's improving it. We're being improved by God as we do that 0:13:09 - 0:13:35 . But we have nothing to prove Jesus already proved that this works. Jesus already proved that this is the best Jesus already proved that it's possible. We are just taking up the invitation to be a part of it. Now, in doing that, we are giving greater proof to other people. We are proving ourselves to 0:13:35 - 0:00:00 , not to God because he already knows but to ourselves. And this is important because it's a factor of the joy we feel in eternity. We know how hard it was to choose to be like Him. What opposition we faced in doing. So we know that in the eternities and it, it's, it's a, it's a vital source of joy. 0:00:00 - 0:00:00 It's very important. But we follow Him here out of love, not obligation, not duty and not necessity in the sense of needing to prove something. We do it because we want to because there isn't anything better that we could do because there's nothing to lose. What did the disciples say to Jesus? When, 0:00:00 - 0:14:37 when Jesus said, are you going to leave? Me too? Peter said, where are we going to go? Only? You have the words of eternal life? And that's, that's how it is. What else are you gonna do except dance with yourself. If that's, if there aren't people to dance with, to the music that, that you value above 0:14:37 - 0:15:02 all things, then guess what, what else are you gonna do? You gotta dance with yourself. OK. Next, next line I like is he says, uh he says, if I looked all over the world and there's every type of girl but your empty eyes seem to pass me by leaving me dancing with myself. And then this, this folds into 0:15:02 - 0:15:24 the last thought I wanted to share, which he says, if I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance and I'd be dancing with myself. In other words, he's fully accepted what seems like the unavoidable outcome that no matter how many people he asks to dance with him, he's not going to find anybody that 0:15:24 - 0:15:49 connects the best he's going to get are empty eyes that pass him by and it, it, this is in full recognition that there's all kinds of diversity in the world, but he's just not gonna find anyone who's going to connect now. Is that true? No, it is not. No, it is not. And it's important that it isn't all 0:15:49 - 0:16:13 fulfillment exists in God and he will lead us to all fulfillment. But in order to find that, and it's increasingly true as there's more and more light in order to find that fulfillment, the only way is to completely accept the lack thereof, to completely accept it and count it more than worth the cost 0:16:13 - 0:16:43 to joyfully accept it so joyfully that you dance by yourself, not mournfully having a good old time dancing with yourself. Right. Do you get it? It's really important. It's really important anyway. So it's just funny how, you know, silly little songs like this can actually connect to so much deep truth 0:16:42 - 0:17:02 . Not saying that was intentional on the part of the writer, a performer. But um when you, when you know these things, you can see them expressed through different vocabularies. And it, it all helps to get different angles on the same ideas.