Is Laughter the Best Medicine?

“TEE HEE” Many apes--including orangutans—tickle each other. Tickling seems to be a universal way of making someone laugh or smile.

The publication Readers Digest says so and the American Medical Association says that laughter is healthy. Laughter can be a tonic when the situation appears hopeless. Can you see the humor in certain situations?

 

You know the story of David and Goliath. A young shepherd boy asks why the Israelite Army doesn't do something about that profane Philistine Goliath. The army tells him, while laughing, that he’s welcome to do something himself. Goliath was over nine feet tall, had a helmet of bronze, wore a coat of scaled armor also made of bronze, his legs were covered with bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung over his back. He was a monstrous figure of a man. But in God’s eyes, however, he was just a man. David sizes things up and decides to face the Philistine, who’s clad in full armor, with nothing but a sling and five small stones. You know that David flung a stone from his sling and struck the giant in the forehead and dropped him prostrate. If you think that’s funny, do you remember what happened next? David saw what happened; the stone sank into his forehead and knocked
him down—but not out! The young David must have laughed as his aim proved so deadly, but David knew what would happen next if that giant regained consciousness. David rushed over to Goliath took the giant’s big ol’ sword and cut off his head with it! Can you see that young teenager trying to lift that massive sword and hack off that giant’s ugly head before he came to? The Israelite Army was laughing when they saw David walk toward the bellowing giant. They weren’t laughing when blood was spurting from his severed jugular vein! They started laughing again when they saw David struggling to carry that oversized bloody head and dragging the giant’s sword back to the army camp. It was no laughing matter! David had the last laugh; he eventually became Israel’s greatest King. Could it be he who laughs last laughs loudest?

Goliath didn’t realize that in fighting David, he was also fighting God. David looked at his situation from God’s point of view. What a difference perspective can make. God’s point of view helps us put giant problems into perspective. Once we see clearly, we can fight more effectively.

Bottom line

Do you sometimes think that God looked down from heaven, watched the entire episode with a smile on his face and thought out loud, ‘now there’s a kid with a bright future’? And don’t you know the entire Israelite Army that stood by watching was ‘tickled’ also. Don’t laugh too loud, God’s watching your life.