A Time to Laugh – Part One

A little humor never hurt anybody, so try this.

In rummaging through an old file I found this copy of a stock report.

It was a rocky week on this Market. “Helium was up, feathers were down. Paper was stationary. Ticonderoga Pencils lost a few points. Though elevators rose, escalators continued their slow decline. Weights were up in heavy trading. Light switches were off. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. The market for raisins dried up. Pampers remained unchanged. Caterpillar stock inched up a bit. Sun peaked at midday. Birds Eye Peas split. Stanley tools filed for Chapter 11. Scott Tissues touched a new bottom.”

Now back to reality. Solomon, reputedly the wisest man who ever lived, offered this dictum: “A time to weep, and a time to laugh…” (Ecclesiastes 3:4).

There is a time to weep, and that all too often. When appropriate do it. Conversely there is a time to laugh. When appropriate do it.

An indicting question is posed in Chuck Swindoll’s book “Laugh Again:” “When did a healthy, well-exercised sense of humor get sacrificed on the altar of adulthood?”

God loves a good laugh! It’s God who says to us, “a joyful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22).

To be spiritual you don’t have to abdicate your intelligence, abort your personality, or abandon your sense of humor. After all, it is said, “God laughed….”

He is the happy God (1 Timothy 1:11), the source of all that is healthy and wholesome and purely hilarious. Anyone who would come up with the ideas to create puppies, kittens, llamas, parrots, and proboscis monkeys has a riotous sense of humor.

You can’t read the gospels without knowing Jesus lived with a spirit of joy and humor and warmth in whose presence other people genuinely enjoyed. Humor of the day, satire, and irony overflowed the cusp of the teaching of Jesus. His vision of God’s kingdom effervesces with joy. Spirit guided self-control enables the faithful to enjoy these attributes. Jesus wasn’t a kill-joy and neither are His teachings. His followers should not be either.

Some of the benefits of laughter include: enhancing intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulating heart, lungs, and muscles, increasing endorphins released by the brain, relieving stress, strengthening social bonds, improving heart health, boosting the immune system, relaxing muscles, lowering anxiety, improving mood, and supporting immunity. Those are not laughing matters, they are blessed benefits. Oh, remember “A merry heart does good like a medicine.”

The “man of sorrows” Himself said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:21). That is a promise of a happy God (1 Timothy 1:11). Crying is going to go the way of death and someday will be no more (Revelation 21:4). But joy full to overflowing and pleasure pure and rich will never end (Psalm 16:11).

We live mindful there is a time to weep, but don’t forget it is just as expedient to laugh.