Laugh — because we are created in His image! ............. Parables 730

September 4, 2001

My weekly drive to Rimbey to see my mother is almost like going on a safari with a side trip to an avant garde art gallery. The safari offers whitetail and mule deer, the usual cattle, horses, goats, pigs, sheep and donkeys, but we are often delighted by herds of domestic elk, bison, llamas, and even long-horned Highland cattle, all far from their normal homes.

The main feature in the art gallery draws the greatest chuckle. It is a fence about a mile long with a colorful baseball cap nailed to the top of each fence post. We understand llamas and the like in Central Alberta, but no matter how creative a farmer is in making his living, fence posts do not normally sprout baseball caps. We cannot help but laugh.

This trip reminds me that people are both creative and humorous. God made us in His image so we come by it honestly. He is not only creative but one look at animals like giraffes and platypus convince me that He has a sense of humor.

Besides odd animals, God’s humor shows up in other ways. In the Old Testament, a man named Gideon is described as something of a coward. One day, the angel of the Lord came to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior” (that is funny) then told him to “go in the strength you have,” and save Israel from the oppressive power the Midianites who threatened to overpower them.

Faint-hearted Gideon protested. He was from the weakest clan. He was the least in his family. He had more excuses — but God persisted. Finally, after testing God’s message several times, Gideon agreed. He gathered an army of 32,000 to go against the 135,000 Midianites. Then God asked him to thin down his army, first to 10,000, then to three hundred. Gideon was not laughing, yet.

The Lord told Gideon to divide his army into three companies and give each man a trumpet and an empty pitcher with a torch in it. They obeyed. They surrounded the enemy camp. When Gideon blew his trumpet, the men blew their trumpets and at the same time broke their pitchers revealing the light of their torches. It turned out that the Midianites were already afraid of Israel. They cried out in terror and in their confusion, they began to slaughter each other until over 120,000 were dead. The rest fled.

God often delights His people with an idea that works when it seems impossible. In another situation, He told Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child but they were “old, well-advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself” no doubt because she found the idea so outrageous.

God makes me laugh too. Some of the animals He created seem to be put together backwards. Some wind up in the most unexpected places. Sometimes the people He created demonstrate a zany creative streak. Sometimes He offers His people ideas that work even though they seem impossible. We laugh and I am certain He is laughing too.

Lord, You told Gideon he had “too many men” and might boast against You by saying his own strength saved them. You reduced his army, yet he must have laughed when he saw how Your creative solution outwitted the enemy.

I chuckle when I see skunks and armadillos and how they have a place in Your creation. You perplex me with conundrums then solve them in startling ways. You also give me the gift of being able to laugh. Thank You for a sense of humor. Enable me to use it in my creativity too.