Who Gets the Last Laugh?

It is ok to laugh at bad things.

Have you ever been in a situation where it is HIGHLY inappropriate to laugh, yet you find something terribly funny, you start laughing, you try to HOLD IN the laughter, and you can’t?

The more you try to hold in the laughter, the worse it becomes.

Typically for me that is when I’m in some kind of meeting or a worship service. Something will strike myself/a friend as funny, we will remark about it, and then we both laugh. The problem comes when I can’t STOP laughing. The more I try to stop, the worse it becomes. Rather than have audible sound escape, I start shaking. It is actually pretty obnoxious, but even in the moment when I realize how obnoxious it is, I also realize how GOOD it feels to laugh.

A few days ago a friend was going through a very difficult personal experience. His nerves were on end as he and his family faced decisions being made that determined their future. They were deep in prayer, asked me to pray, and they were doing all the “right things.” They were meditating, praying, listening to music that had lyrics that would feed their soul, and engaging in spiritual dialogue about the situation. But – frankly, all they could do was wait to see what the outcome would be.

When it was over and the outcome was as favorable as it could be, he and his family shared with me they knew God was laughing. Because I love them dearly, I couldn’t quite grasp that part of the situation yet. I saw and felt how they were agonizing over the situation . . . and I also knew that God didn’t “dictate”the outcome . . . free will was involved. And anytime we are dealing with one another, the outcome can always go a lot of different ways. God is always IN the outcome, but when we hurt, God hurts. I knew their pain, thus I couldn’t quite get to the part that God was laughing.

However, in retrospect, I know they were right.

God wasn’t laughing AT the situation, and I imagine God was yearning for all involved to follow God in the decisions that would be made.

Yet, God was laughing at their anxiety and worry (which is what they meant to begin with!)

Regardless of how bad our situations are . . .  how bleak and dark things seem . . . in the end, Love wins. Good prevails.

Just like that day at the tomb. Jesus was dead. Yet new life became the new reality. It changed things.
It changes things.

ALWAYS – if we allow it, new life is born out of dead things. Are there dead things you need to give up to God so that you can find laughter in the joy of life?

Are there things we need to let go of and laugh, knowing that God has the last laugh and no matter how dark the night, joy comes in the morning?

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.