“GOD HATH MADE ME TO LAUGH, so that all that hear will laugh with me.” Genesis 21:6.
These are the words of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, who had just experienced a most wonderful happening–the birth of Isaac, her son! His name actually means “laughter”! Expectedly, there would be much laughter in Sarah’s circle of friends, for laughter is a concerted and contagious practice. And who was making it happen? God!
There are several principles, concerning laughter, to be gleaned from this verse of Scripture: Firstly, laughter comes from God. This “inborn gift,” is soon revealed by an infant’s smile within the first weeks after birth, followed by an audible laugh within months. Indeed, “laughter is [our] birthright.”
Secondly, God creates situations that make us laugh. He has a sense of humor. Why else would He have given a puppy that wagging tail or the raccoon that detective’s mask! 1 God is involved in our joys and takes pleasure in our laughter.
Thirdly, it is worth noticing that God makes even older people laugh. While children’s laughter occurs spontaneously many times a day, laughter becomes less frequent in adulthood, when life’s burdens and trials prompt a more serious outlook. Enter: children, grandchildren, family, friends–what a difference they make, lifting the hearts of the elderly with laughter and possibly thereby adding a few more years to their life. 2
Lastly, laughter possesses a power of attraction that “brings people together and strengthens relationships.” This is one good reason why we ought not to walk down the street, staring at our cell phone. Smiling at the people we meet can create opportunities to talk, laugh, and connect one with another. “Laughter is a universal connection,” explains Y. Smirnoff; “everybody laughs the same in every language.” It is “the closest distance between two people,” reflects Victory Borge. How beautiful!
But this is a grim and dismal world! How can we laugh when the powers of darkness are threatening us on every front! Truly, were it not for God on His eternal throne, we would have reason to despair. However, Psalm 2 encourages us that God is sitting in the heavens laughing in derision at the futile, preposterous moves of the kings of the earth, tiny worms that they are! And when God laughs, we laugh with Him–not at humanity’s untold suffering caused by the “vain imaginations” of the wicked, but in defiance against those who want our demise. So, let us laugh when we gather for joyous celebrations, when we visit around the dinner table, when we play with our children! “There’s an intimacy in laughter that nothing else can come close to” (Eric Mabius).
What’s more, “true laughter…destroys any kind of system of dividing people” (John Cleese)! Ah, we can combat the corruptive agendas of the elite by the powerful slogan: “Be happy! It drives them crazy!”–but does us well! “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine,” said King Solomon. In truth, our circulatory system is benefited, our immune system is strengthened, our muscles become more relaxed, the negative effects of stress are counteracted, calories are burned, our mood is heightened, good feelings are promoted–all by the positive effects of laughter. 2
Have we not reason to rejoice, to laugh? Have we not been “delivered out of the hand of our enemies [to serve God] without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life” (Luke 1:75)? Has not the Lord “filled our mouth with laughter” (Psa. 126:2) when He turned our captivity and brought us home to Zion, the “city of our solemnities” (Isa. 33:20)? Strong’s concordance notes that the term “solemnities” refers to “festivals or solemn feasts”; the Hebrew word for “feasts” indicates, among other things, “to move in a circle, by implication to be giddy; celebrate, dance, to reel to and fro.” In conjunction with these definitions, Apostle S. Hargrave concludes that, since Christ came to fulfill these Old Testament feasts, we now, as the church in the new dispensation can respond with merriment also.
To be sure, laughter belongs to God’s people. To reiterate again the words of Apostle Hargrave: why should the world be permitted to have its fun now, and we, the saints, are to wait until heaven? Nay, this great salvation was not given us to make us sad. Who would want to hop on our boat, if we all wear long faces! By the way, God gave us a smile to wear regularly, not just on picture day or on special occasions. After all, as someone said, “we are His work of art.” God’s art gallery, of all others, should spark the greatest attraction! May we prompt a beautiful reaping of souls by our demonstration of Christ’s fullness of joy!
“To everything there is a season…a time to weep, and a time to laugh” (Eccl. 3:1, 4). In all of life’s “ebbs and flows,” providentially allowed by God, let us not forget that God has made us to laugh. Jesus Himself, though called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, testified of His joy and, no doubt, expressed it through laughter, for example, when taking the children into His arms or when eating and drinking in company with others. Neither did He expect His disciples to mourn while He, the Bridegroom was with them. And, is not Immanuel, God in the flesh through the church, primarily through His apostles and prophets with us, also? Even unto the end of the world will He remain with us! Surely, we too then, can exclaim, “God hath made me to laugh”!
1] M. Lucado
2] Helpguide.org/mental-health/laughter-is-the-best-medicine
