“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.”  (  Proverbs 31:25, New Living Translation, concerning the woman of excellence.)

“ ⁶ And Sarah declared, ‘God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me.

  ⁷ Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!’”  (Genesis 21:6-7, New Living Translation, Sarah [who was 90 years old (!) after the birth of her only-born son, Isaac, whose name means “Laughter.”)

A lady told me a very funny story to me after church yesterday.  Her husband plays on a seniors’ softball league, and many of the wives go to watch—and to visit with one another.

One day, when the old guys were coming off the field, their wives were laughing uproariously.  When the men asked what the ladies were laughing so hard about, the women just pointed to the sky.  Apparently, there were a bunch of buzzards circling around!

Laughter is a wonderful thing.  It is on my to-be-and-to-do list as an every-single-day goal.

Of course, there are lots of painful and serious things in the world.  Sometimes, all we can do is just stand there, like a cow in a cold rain.  Laughter is not always an option, either for us or for those we love.

But often, we can laugh—even at very serious realities.  Especially at very serious realities.  Why do we laugh about politics, marriage, aging, sex, and death?  Because they are too serious to take too seriously!

I am not a very humorous person.  (I once made the mistake of asking my wife, “Why don’t you ever laugh at my jokes?”  She shot back with, “If you’d tell one, I would!”  Now that was funny!)  Usually, about the only time people laugh at me is when I’m being totally serious.

And, of course, I am most certainly no researcher in the field of humor research, though there are people who do serious research in the field of humor.  I am not joking!  A Ph.D. in joke-ology: Imagine that!

There really are some serious reasons to laugh.  Even such a sober and respected organization as the Mayo Clinic recognizes some of the health benefits of laughter (http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-relief/art-20044456, accessed 06-19-2017).  I’ll just mention a couple of the benefits that I have personally experienced.

I suspect that laughter is our way of holding serious issues at arm’s length, so that we can get a better look at them.  Taking everything seriously all the time destroys our perspective.  Laughter helps us to regain our perspective.  I think that laughter may even help us to think of other possible solutions to some of our most vexing problems.

That may be related to the fact that humor helps us to relax.  Only when I am relaxed can I think of other possible solutions to my problems.  In any case, relaxing is an important thing to do.  Most of us, I suspect, need to practice the fine art of relaxing a whole lot more than we do.

I was once at a very tense meeting at a church.  We were considering making a major financial commitment.  There was a lot of discussion, both pro and con.  I realized that churches had split over much more trivial things.

When the vote was taken, the ayes had it by one vote!  I held my breath.  I think everyone who was there held his or her breath.

And then, one of the people who had opposed the expenditure made some outrageously funny remark that I can’t even remember now.  It may have been something to the effect of a lighthearted “Well, we’ve settled that one!”  Everyone laughed.  And suddenly, we all knew that we could go on being one church.

Have you laughed yet today?