Article March 18, 1996 ISSUE

Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously

Mark Swinney

When confronting some difficulty that seems overwhelming, have you ever found that laughter can bring a perspective that leads you to what can disarm evil and heal? Instead of trudging along soberly, laboring predictably, we might remember a little humor can help us see things from a standpoint that quickly melts what appears to be towering over us and crushing our joy.

Of course, laughter alone doesn't have the power to heal spiritually or to redeem. Yet what laughter can represent of the joy of Soul, of God, is powerful. It can break through hypnotic, fraudulent claims of power in evil and help us recognize more of the perfect nature of God's creation. Evil doesn't seem so ominous when we look at things from God's perspective, so to speak. In fact, to God, infinite good, evil isn't power at all. It isn't even an entity. One of the Bible's psalms begins, "Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me." Something a few verses later answers the fear behind those requests: "Thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision" (59:1, 8).

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