I Wanted To Write About Laughter…

As they say in the south, dadgummit!!

I was going to write on something lighter. Yesterday’s blog was so heavy and multiple people commented on how it had started their Friday off with tears. Sorry bout dat.

So tonight I was intrigued by a comment our daughter Suzanne made on the way to school this morning. She said, “Dad, did you know that children laugh about 400 times per day and adults laugh on average 15 times per day?

So I was going to write about that, the lessening of laughter in adults. I was even going to quote Job 8:21, with Bildad saying to Job, “He will fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.”

What would Job of all people know about laughter. Plenty obviously. The book of Job is one of the most promising and reassuring books of the Bible.

But that is not what I am writing about after all. I jumped up a couple of verses in that same chapter of Job and it was there that I found these words.

“Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider web.”

Now that’s not reassuring at all. Except it is directed to those who forget God and assures them what will happen if they do.

They put their trust in other sources which become fragile and are as flimsy as a spider web.

As an optimist I want to believe we as a nation will once again flourish as a God centered group of people. And we may in fact one day do just that.

But, I personally believe we will go through an incredibly dark period before that happens. Why…?

Because we consistently place our trust and reliance on other things, other resources, other people, rather than placing our trust and our future in the one true God.

Foreign gods abound in this nation. And where there are no foreign gods there is no god at all.

Maybe that is why we as adults laugh less than children. We see the coming hardships, the increased persecution on the church and those of faith.

I get so tired of hearing christians using the media as an excuse for their plight and calling it persecution. That’s not persecution. That’s organized opinion.

Persecution is when those of the Christian faith are looked at as the enemy of national allegiance. When the Christian faith is seen as the opposition to a stronger alliance of evil partners no matter what they call themselves.

And I really meant for this post to not be heavy.

I wanted to write about laughter.

JHH