” A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” Proverbs 17:22

How important is laughter? Does it really improve your health? Some studies indicate that it does. One medical source referred to it as “inner jogging”! It lowers blood pressure and contributes to an overall feeling of well being.

My wife is noted for her hearty laughter and sense of humor. When we were dating she actually laughed at my corny jokes! That’s how I knew she was the “one”! In looking back on our family when our kids were growing up, we had a lot of fun and laughed a LOT! I wanted our home to be like that.

One famous incident was when we had a cabin on the Au Sable River in Northern Michigan. One weekend we invited a number of teens to join us for a weekend of fun and Bible studies. ( They can go together you know!) When I was at the store picking up groceries, I noticed some squirt guns. Aha! That started A squirt gun war the next day, running around the property. The “war” ended when I grabbed the garden hose and took control! Gotta win ya know!

Jesus is referred to in the Bible as “The Man of Sorrows”, but He had an inner peace and joy that was amazing. You can put me down for believing that he laughed a lot with His disciples and other people. I can’t prove it other than to say that laugher is a gift from God and proceeds from inner joy and happiness. Did anyone have that more than Jesus? And the believer? See John 7:37. We have the Holy Spirit within us flowing through us like a river! Rivers bless everything they touch!

One of my favorite pictures is of Jesus sitting on the ground surrounded by little children and laughing. Is that what your home is like? What YOU are like? I believe our faith should be contagious and inner joy and peace are obvious to others. Is it fun for your children to grow up in your house? Or, maybe it’s grandchildren. Do they love coming over and spending time with you? My grandkids love me to tell “Bear Stories” (I’ll talk about that sometime) and they love to do almost anything with “grandma”! Our homes should be an oasis for the little ones to experience peace and joy and fun.

The converse of this is the “prune-faced” person who “lives in constant fear that somewhere someone is having fun”. Many years ago there was a man in Winston Churchill’s cabinet like that. He was very puritanical and rarely smiled. One day as he was leaving a meeting Churchill said of him, “There but for the grace of God goes God”. Ouch!

Many people were critical of C.H. Spurgeon’s preaching, especially his laughter during his sermons. Finally Spurgeon said, “if you only knew how much I was holding in”! Hah!

We need to laugh more, especially at ourselves and not take ourselves so seriously. Of course I am not talking about coarse or foolish jesting, but genuine laughter flowing out of hearts blessed by the grace of a God that we know loves us with an everlasting, unchangeable love! We should be the happiest people on earth, saved by the blood of Christ and on our way to heaven! What else really matters beloved?

Make your faith contagious! Spread the joy! Laugh, chuckle and even laugh out loud! Maybe, just maybe, someone might ask you for a reason “for the hope (joy) that is in you” 1Peter3:15

Trrry