It’s funny to me (get it?) that no one has mentioned (at least as far as I’ve seen) the several places in the Bible that describe God as laughing. It seems to me that all of you Bible experts would have come across that at some point ha ha. I looked it up some time ago, since I’m so dang funny all the time, I wanted to find some scripture that legitimizes humor.
Now, in each case of scripture mentioning God’s laughter, He is laughing at the stupidish efforts of those attempting to oppose Him. So it’s more of a derisive amusement than what we might be more likely to see as a humorous occasion, like He laughs at those who are so deceived that they actually think that they can overthrow His sovereignty, or somehow defeat His will.
The soul of humor is the juxtaposition of incongruities. I saw a white comedian recently talking to an audience of mostly black people, describing the one word that white people can never ever say under any circumstances, not once, not even joking, even though black people say it all the time. And they were all sort of nervously laughing. And I’m saying to myself, “don’t say it, DON”T say it, please don’t say it!” And he didn’t. But he went on to say that there is also a word that black people can similarly never ever say. No matter what, they can never say this word.
Pregnant pause. The word is “ask”.
And the place broke up. Everyone laughed at his audacity, that he would make this observation to an audience of people who were the objects of his joke. But the beloved objects. He showed some respect by not saying the other word first. That’s the incongruity that made the comedy work.
A sense of humor is a gift. It just makes life a lot more enjoyable. But it always must be exercised with love. As the saying goes, we must laugh with each other and never at each other.
My opinion is that God does have a sense of humor. It goes with His full palette of other emotions. And that God intentionally equipped humans with a sense of humor in order that we can employ it to make the tough times better, laughing at our circumstances and even ourselves. We have the choice to engage our sense of humor to make difficulties more tolerable, and the good times more joyful. I can’t imagine not laughing with my children. We are God’s children, right?
I also can’t imagine living like all those guys that @Johann listed. Ha ha no offense brother, but no thanks either.
You all might remember the Von Trapp family of “Sound of Music” fame. The very first movie I ever saw in a theater. Well, they came to America after they escaped the Nazis. And they made a living touring and giving performances. They had mixed success. The reason for that was that they were so intent on being technically perfect in their singing, their performances came off as being solemn and somber. Some called them downright depressing.
That is until at one performance, Maria (who was played by Julie Andrews in the movie) was holding a long note, when she suddenly started coughing and sputtering, which disrupted the whole song. The music stopped, the family turned to her in horror, and the audience went silent. She went to the microphone and said “I’ve swallowed a fly!”
The whole hall went up in prolonged laughter, and their performances going forward were transformed into something much more looose and enjoyable, rather than the funeral march they had been giving. And they went on to many bookings and great success.
Maybe God prepared a fly for a suicide mission on that night?
Maybe He got a chuckle out of it as well?
Your brother
