Humor

“Laughter is a universal medicine." - Bertrand Russell

"Humor is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

I am always an optimistic person and laughter can cultivate that optimism. Humor can crack through the ice and take the fear away. I often feel blessed just to be alive and enjoying life despite of the problems I am facing. What is the greatest reward of being alive? Just being alive and enjoying life. Humor, no matter when it comes, helps me bear the unbearable. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies when we don't use humor when needed. Research have shown that humor can help us cope better with pain, enhance our immune system, reduce stress, even help us live longer. It's well known that laughter can make us feel better.

I have learned to respond negative insults or comments with humor. Life is too short to turn every personal affront into a battle. One way of coping my life is by enjoying humor and that way, I have learned better understand myself better, others and the world I live in. One day, I was reading one of A.W. Tozer's writings when I saw this quote he wrote: One of the problems most frequently encountered by serious-minded Christians is how to discover the will of God in a given situation. This is not a small matter. Christian legalism is one distortion of the faith that was robbing people of their joy however, on the opposite side of the spectrum was Christian libertinism which takes freedom to an extreme. Humor needs to be balanced. Paul was explaining in one of his letters that “everything may be permissible, but not everything is beneficial". Keeping that balance is always a challenge. If the capacity for fun is God given, and it is a wonderful gift that one can only wonder what tickles God's sense of humor.

I think God has a better view of His version of the " America 's Funniest Videos" of His creatures stumbling to their human nature. When I watch " America 's Funniest Videos" and see some really funny scenes that could have "me" doing them. I could laugh along with them. Then, I thought about God and wondering if He is laughing along with us? He will have some wonderful stories for us when we check into heaven one day when our time is up. After all He can see the end from the beginning so He knows when to laugh with us and when to cry. He knows how often we are preoccupied with the heavy stuff and longs for us to stand back and see the essential joy, the lighter side which is usually there somewhere. In Ecclesiastes 3:4 says "A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." Its okay to laugh as well as it is okay to cry. I love it when I saw this quote by Martin Luther, "If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there”.

I want to remind people that God created us and I don't know why He allows us to fart, burp, experience hic-cups and any other body reactions that we had to deal with. I just think that He wants people to laugh when those things happen around us. That it is not fair that only two people did not have belly buttons and the rest of us have to be reminded with our belly buttons. Did you notice that most people's belly button are different? LOL.