God’s Laughter, & Ours

God’s Laughter, & Ours by Kelly Durant 7-27-14

Psalm 126:2 “Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them.”

2. A little boy opened the big and old family Bible with fascination, and looked at the old pages as he turned them. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible, and he picked it up and looked at it closely. It was an old leaf from a tree that had been pressed in between the pages. "Momma, look what I found," the boy called out. "What have you got there, dear?" his mother asked. With astonishment in the young boy's voice, he answered: "I think it's Adam's suit!"

How many of you like to laugh? We don’t usually think of the Bible as humorous but from all the different stories, we can conclude God often did some humorous things to get our attention! I think God must laugh at our feeble attempts to understand the mechanics of the universe!

God made us to laugh and to want to enjoy life! What is the Christian conclusion of the purpose of mankind? “To enjoy God and love him forever!”

3. God seems to have made us with an appetite for laughter! Science cannot explain laughter, it is involuntary. Think about it, can you premeditate laughter? Ok, in 10 seconds I am going to laugh! Hum, it didn’t work! Ha! Maybe it is because we need our internal organs massaged a few times a day, right? Little kids and even teenagers laugh a lot more than us as adults. Sometimes the teens in back laugh during the sermons and I have no clue as to why! It is sad, that many stop laughing with age! Laughter is all about connections and the people we love.

Most laughter is not even sparked by a joke. For example, Olga may be telling me about where to buy some shampoo that makes the hair fluffy, and how everyone could all use some of it, and I answer, ‘that’s how it is’, and she tells me more and when I say it another time, ‘that’s how it is’, we both laugh out loud because we both know I say that when I really don’t know what to answer back on that subject, ‘Isn’t that how it is?’ When I am lost for words I also love other sayings in Spanish (English too) like, “Oh, don’t tell me that!” Say that 3 times and that’s funny too, right? Well, you can see how what’s funny relates to the relationship you have with person! With some people, one can never be funny though! That’s scary!

So how funny is the Bible? Some parts have funny expressions; did any of you ever finish reading Song of Solomon? However, other parts are very sobering with heavy lessons. We might actually conclude God matures us more in the sobering trying times than in the fun times in our lives, but the balance is found in Psalm 127:2 “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” Laughter, seriousness, and sadness all have their time and place in our lives and we must pray to have discernment.

4. There is a time for everything, and the Bible teaches us to be connected to our family of brothers and sisters as in one collective heart! James 5:13 “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms.” What we can conclude is we will laugh and sing when the mood is right, but if a brother is down or sick, we will be serious and pray for him or her.

There is nothing more irritating than some kid or adult laughing when everyone is trying to get everyone quiet for a serious message, right? And also when everyone is happy and singing “Happy Birthday” laughing that one of our teens is wishing for a new Porsche, how out of place it would be for someone to be hanging around with a bored ugly angry face, right?

Kids seem to help us laugh the most! This is why the Bible mentions children as a blessing! Psalm 127:3 “Children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward”. Our kids do so many funny things! They even make TV shows on the funniest home videos with kids and people in funny situations. My mother told me that when I was little I was putting ice cream from my bowl into my pocket. When they asked me what are you doing I told the babysitter that I liked this stuff and that I wanted to take some home to eat it later, ha!