Chuck Swindoll asks,
How is your sense of humour? Are the times in which we live beginning to be reflected in your attitude, your face, your outlook? Solomon…says three things will occur when we have lost our sense of humour: a broken spirit, a lack of inner healing, and dried-up bones (Proverbs 15:13, 15; 17:22). What a barren portrait!…Humour is not a sin. It is a God-given escape hatch…a safety valve. Being able to see the lighter side of life is a rare, vital virtue.1
A refreshing sense of humour is never distasteful, ill-timed, or tactless. Instead, it lightens our spirits and energizes our thoughts. It helps us step back and not take this fleeting life quite so seriously.
“Three tests of good humour: Can you laugh at your own mistakes? Can you restrain when it isn't fitting? Can you enjoy it all alone?”2 If you can't yet answer yes to these questions, we invite you to enjoy our resources on humour. You may feel your strained muscles relax as your troubled thoughts are chased away by good old-fashioned laughter.
1. Charles R. Swindoll, The Finishing Touch: Becoming God's Masterpiece (Dallas: Word, 1994), 220.
2. Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll's Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotes (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 283.
I grumble. I gripe. I have grievances. In the midst of my whining, something happened. Our family took a trip to a third-world country with Compassion. While we were there, God hit me with the shallowness of my outlook on life.
What's the nicest thing someone has ever said to you? Proverbs 12:18 is so true. “Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.”
You want to be great? You want to make a lasting impact? You want to make a significant contribution? I don’t think that’s a bad ambition—if we’re talking true greatness.
A reporter once asked a couple how they had managed to stay married 65 years. The woman replied, “We were born in a time when if something was broken, we would fix it, not throw it away.”
If joy depended on our circumstances, we’d have had an awful year. But we haven’t.
Have you ever met someone whose life seems to be a never-ending string of amazing, marvellous, wonderful, and awesome? Do you feel like punching them?
“Dear Mr. Callaway, I enjoy your books and your sense of humour. In my early teens laughter was easy. I'm 17 now and the joy is gone from my life. How do you live a life of joy?”
Those whose lives are marked by illogical, outrageous joy seem to display five characteristics that form an acronym for GRACE.
As a Christian, I am to be a person of the spoken and written word. Those words should build, nurture, encourage and affirm. None of these develop quickly.
Christmases of my childhood were marked by monumental events, few more exciting than the Sunday school program, which slammed the door on three months of school and opened another on two weeks of holidays.
Sign up to receive Chuck Swindoll’s Daily Devotional in your inbox seven days per week.
Insight for Living is committed to excellence in communicating the truths of Scripture and the Person of Jesus Christ in an accurate, clear, and practical manner so that people will come to an understanding of God’s plan for their lives, as well as their significant role as authentic Christians in a needy, hostile, and desperate world.
1-30445 Progressive Way • Abbotsford, BC • V2T 6W3
info@insightforliving.ca
1.800.663.7639