A Laughing Matter

“The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly as he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God said it would. And Abraham named their son Isaac.”

[Gen. 21:1-3 (NLT)]

I can’t explain it, but whenever God answers my prayers, I feel sincerely happy, but kind of silly at the same time. I think of how hard life is before I FINALLY convince myself I should pray about it, then he answers my prayer and I think “of course, silly, THAT’S WHAT GOD DOES!”

“And Sarah declared, ‘God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me. Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!” [Gen. 21:6-7 (NLT)]

It reminds me of the time my parents were forcing me to go to church, I was then an atheist and found religion to be more of an “evil in disguise” than anything else. But they wouldn’t hear of it, I simply had no choice, I was going to church. I was absolutely APPALLED that parents would force religion on to their children. I was appalled that my parents were making me “bow down” to their “fake god” just because they did. So I simply looked at my stepmother hatefully and said, “Do you have any idea what this is going to do to me?”

The truth is, neither of us had ANY idea what it would do to me. And I am SO grateful for all that it did FOR (and not to) me. I used to be a cynical, miserable atheist who lived life feeling like a LOSER. Today, I am the complete opposite. Like Sarah’s laughing: I went from sarcasm to sincerity in a year.

You see, Christians, sometimes we forget (or never learn in the first place) exactly who God is. GOD IS NOT JUST A GOOD IDEA, HE IS NOT JUST THE BOSS MAN, HE NEVER HAS JUST GOOD INTENTION. God is THE REAL GOOD, and he backs every promise with follow through. And when he shows us that, it makes us want to laugh, sincerely! And it’s a great feeling!

Now here’s the challenge, FREEZE THAT FEELING. When God answers our prayers, we feel like the world is working for us. But there always comes a time when we feel like the world has chewed us up and spit us out. But just hold on to the feeling, the one that says God is watching over you, even when that is ALL you can hold on to. Because that feeling is SO MUCH MORE than all those other negative feelings combined.

In the sun shine,

God loves how your face glows.

But when the rain comes,

Just look at a rainbow.

Another challenge, notice how Sarah said, “All who hear about this will laugh with me.” What good is laughter when only you can hear it? You see there are plenty of people in this world who are not laughing. The kind of people who only smile just to make others think they’re happy. God can change that, and you can help. Christians, the light inside of you, the joy God puts in you, is too bright to keep for only yourself. Share it with others. Everybody has a story, and you never know how a story could impact somebody’s life. I mean, why do we read the Bible?