I was working on a newsletter about identity when my Apple TV screensaver came on.
Dolphins swimming through the ocean.
I stopped to watch. There was something beautiful about the way they moved. So graceful. So effortless.
They weren’t trying to impress anybody.
But it was impressive.
They were just expressing their nature.
And this thought came to me:
You’re not swimming to become a dolphin. You’re swimming because you are one.
I wonder how often I get that backward. Doing things to become somebody. Looking to what I accomplish, and how people respond, to tell me who I am.
Even something I love can become a way of asking, Am I enough?
Singing. Creating. Building something.
There’s a difference between enjoying someone’s response to what I’ve made and needing their response before I can enjoy it myself.
I think that’s the difference I’m reaching for between performance and expression.
Performance keeps looking outward. Did they like it? Were they impressed? Was it enough?
Expression finds satisfaction in bringing something from within into the world. There’s joy in the singing itself. In finding the words. In making something that feels true to how you were made.
Applause is lovely. But it doesn’t have to decide whether the thing was worth doing.
There’s a line in Chariots of Fire a quote of Eric Liddel that I’ve always loved:
“God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”
I love that the pleasure is in the running.
Notice that it wasn’t in the winning.
Imagine him saying, “When I win, I feel his pleasure.”
Sounds like many a hockey or pageant mom today…
Now he does go on to say “to win is to honor Him”, but I don't think he means that to come second or lose is to dishonor God.
The point is, God’s pleasure is in the expression, not the performance. Like any 'normal’ parent!
Reminds me of a lyric in the AlreadyLoved song:
“He doesn’t want you to perform, He just loves to hear you sing”
As parents watching a child play soccer or sing at a school concert, we want them to do well. You can cheer when they score.
But sometimes the thing that makes you smile is simply watching them out there. Recognizing their little mannerisms. Seeing their face light up.
That’s your child.
Their delight becomes your delight.
I wonder if I leave enough room for God to enjoy me that way. Whether I’m so busy asking Him to assess what I’ve done that I miss the possibility that He’s delighting in me as I do it.
Back on the screen, the dolphins kept swimming.
Imagine one of them trying to walk around on the shore. Watching other creatures. Practicing. Trying to get better.
Maybe it becomes the best walking dolphin anyone has ever seen.
Then you see that same dolphin in the water.
There it is.
The movement. The freedom. The beauty that all that walking practice could never quite produce.
It makes me wonder how much energy we spend becoming good at things we think will make us valuable. How often we mistake approval for the feeling of being fully alive.
“Stop doing. Start being.”
Those words have been coming to me lately. I’m beginning to understand what I mean by them.
I still want to work, create, sing, build, and get better at things. There’s joy in learning to express something well.
But I don’t want everything I do to carry the responsibility of proving that I’m somebody.
Before I sing a note, I’m already loved. After the song ends, I’m still loved.
Maybe knowing that lets me enjoy the singing more and offer it more freely. Lets someone else be better at it without making me feel smaller.
The dolphins weren’t waiting for a verdict.
I was watching them, delighted.
And they just kept swimming.
See you next Friday