Laugh!

A couple of my students sent me this video.  They promised to try these out and let me know which ones were most successful.  I cracked up when I watched this, and I hope you did too.  Sometimes it's ok to just laugh at ourselves.  

These days so much of what we do is serious.  We get up and work all day, come home and go through the evening routine we do our best to live out our faith day in and day out.  It seems like we can get so offended when someone gives Christians a hard time, we get pretty heated when we feel like we are being discriminated or picked on because of our beliefs.  I think we forget that the fathers and mothers of our faith were ostracized and truly suffered for their faith.  The crazy thing, is that most of them endured it without getting so offended.  Rather than use these incidents to fuel our desire to act in love in the world we often get pretty judgmental about what "God will do" to those who disagree with us.  When did we get so serious?  

Laughter is so good for us.  In fact there are lots of medical studies done on the healing qualities of laughter, not to mention that when we really laugh we even burn calories!  Children laugh 300-400 times each day, while on average adults only laugh 20.  

When is the last time you really  laughed?  How might you find joy in the midst of the seriousness of your responsibilities?  Are you taking yourself too seriously?

Scripture says in Psalm 126:

"When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,  we were like those who dreamed.Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

What great things has the Lord done for you?  When we celebrate the movement of God in our lives our perspectives change, being positive can truly be rooted in gratitude.  Might you find more time for joy in your life?  For what are you most grateful this day?

Amen!