Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power: Laugh With Me

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

Thanks so much for joining me for a little more light-hearted series, Laugh with Me. Grab your coffee and come on in and hopefully when you leave, you’ll have a smile in your heart that wends its way to your face, and is given to many who you see without one! Let’s dig a bit more on the subject of laughter, so we may laugh a little deeper and a lot more often!

Some other Hebrew definitions for laughter are: "To be fresh, i.e. full, rosy, (figuratively) cheerful; to announce (glad news) ... bear, carry, preach and tell good tidings."

What? It means to preach? Really, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn’t ask but I sure did when I read it!) :)  But now I get it. Come with me. Let me introduce you to one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament.

Isaiah, the prophet, was a great example of “cheerful." In fact, in Isaiah 61, we can literally almost touch the “cheerfulness” Isaiah is preaching with here: He is speaking about the Good News of Salvation! Of course he was cheerful. He says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,” which were the same words that Jesus quoted in Luke 4:18-19.

For those of us in relationship with Christ, accepting Him as our Savior, we know that His Spirit is part of the deal; it’s in us. But what a great Christ-like example for the Spirit to be upon us; in other words, able to be seen by others as it splashes hope, grace and love on to others. You can’t help but notice the light coming from that person.

Have you ever been the bearer of good news? Were you smiling from the inside out and could you hardly wait to get it to them? I just love telling my little four-year-old grandson I have a surprise for him or some good news. His little eyes get as big as quarters, and they light up with sparks of childlike joy that make me smile from the inside out.

Believe it or not, each day, there is something that can be considered exactly that! All we need to do is rewind the movie form the day before, in slow motion if you will, and look at the God-winks, or God stops along the way. He waits with anticipation to replay the movie from the day before, to show us His Good News in action by reminding and refreshing our memory and soul of the times He intervened the day before. This is why He tells us: "Be still and know that I am God"!

For example: did you avoid a fall, experience a near-miss while driving, receive some sort of good news about a situation or problem, hear from an old friend, experience a divine appointment? There are so many times when He extends His hand out to us, without us seeing, and He speaks into our conscience through a song, a person, or even creation, and most especially His Love Letters to us.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t take the time to be still and know that He is God because we are in the throes of life and we miss the reality of His blessings and acts of provision and protection. But a little dab will do ya; I promise! He realizes you don’t have all day to sit and read, put your feet up and eat bon-bons! Just give Him the first minutes of your day.

What, intimidated by the Big Book, you say? That's a common feeling, and it can be even more so, based on our interpretations of God and the feelings we ascribe to Him. Maybe if we put ourselves into what we are reading, the intimidation will disappear slowly, like a cloud from the sky. And you don’t have to read an entire chapter to be full of His Good News.

Take a Psalm a day and experience the highs and lows of the psalmists. Write your name wherever possible and then add your circumstance, relationship issue or whatever is zapping energy from your soul. For example, today is the 24^th. Let’s go to Psalm 124, which is a psalm about being delivered from an enemy/unlovable person in our life. We’ll just take verses 6-8 and let me show you what I mean by putting yourself in it:

“Blessed be the Lord Who has not given” ________ (put your name in that blank) “ as prey to their” ___________________. (Put the word scheme, or gossip, or trickery in this line, depending on your current relationship problem and who it is with.) “Our" (My) "soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the” _______________ (fill it in with the same word you just used in the last blank line) “is broken and we” (I) “have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord Who made heaven and earth.”

Now so it’s a bit clearer than mud, let me re-write using something I’m going through and let me tell you, there is a cheerfulness that begins within that turns my frown into a smile:

Blessed is my God Who has not given me as prey to their anger and bitterness. Please cause my soul to escape their bitterness and their anger as a bird from the snare of the fowler and their anger and bitterness will be broken. Yes, my help is in the name of the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth, not in this person and their bitterness and anger.

                                                                                                                                Good and Cheerful

When we put ourselves into His Love Letters which were written about us                     News!
and for us, that is some cheerfully good news! Go ahead, it’s your turn; give                 
it a try and let me know if you don’t smile from the inside out!

In His love and laughter,


Evinda