The Giggles
My wife, Brooke, had the giggles. You know what I’m talking about. It’s that mood where anything and everything is funny—even the things that are objectively not funny in the least.
I love it when it happens. Everything she read or saw seemed funny to her, and it gave her the giggles. It must have been my refined sense of humor (note the sarcasm), but when I came over to see what was so funny, I left slightly confused and sans giggles. The content Brooke was viewing and reading was not that funny, but her spirit was light and that made all the difference. I was a little jealous, to be honest, because the giggles are the greatest.
An hour later, I walked into the kitchen to find a comic affixed to the frig. It depicted a cucumber facing away from the viewer with the label “bacteria” and another facing toward the viewer with the label “fronteria.” I did what any good dad armed with a dad joke sense of humor would do and quickly drew a cucumber facing to the right and labeled it “sideteria.”
I’m still waiting for the roaring laughter to commence.
It is a light-hearted example, but it illustrates a sobering truth—we often lose our laughs as we age. There are many studies on this, and the numbers vary quite a lot, but the bottom line is that a six-month old laughs way more than an adult! You know this to be true. One of the greatest joys in the world is watching a baby laugh uncontrollably. It’s simply tremendous! Multiple studies say the number of laughs per day for a six-month old is around 300, while an average adult laughs only a dozen or two times a day. Again, there is quite a bit of fluctuation between studies, but there is significant consensus in the conclusions—laughs diminish as we age.
There are certainly physiological reasons for this, among them the amazing reality that laughter helps shape and hardwire a developing brain, so it’s particularly needed as an infant! But there is also a spiritual component we should be intentional to hone!
Nehemiah 8:10 may be familiar to you. It declares, “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” As with all of scripture, context is critical here, especially because other portions of scripture are clear that grieving is important. For example, we are to “mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15). But in Nehemiah 8, Ezra is reading God’s Word to the people returning from exile. He is exhorting them to celebrate what God has done for them, and to recognize where they will find the strength for the very significant task at hand—the rebuilding of the city! The source of that needed strength, says Nehemiah, is the joy of the Lord!
You see, my friend, the joy of the Lord is not just a case of the giggles, as glorious as that can be. The joy of the Lord is a soul-level grounding in God’s Word that makes your spirit light enough to take on the otherwise-too-heavy task of rebuilding what is broken around you! It is the way you can engage that which is bigger than you without being crushed by it.
The joy of the Lord is your strength, because the Word that carries that joy is infinitely more powerful than that which opposes you.
Giggles are so good. Truly, they are terrific and good for the soul. You should giggle today.
The joy of Lord is even better! If you root yourself in the strength of God’s Word, you just might laugh more than 20 times a day. But no matter the number of laughs, the joy of God’s Word will prove strong enough to support the work He has assigned you.
The work before you is real. So is His joy. Take on the latter as you engage the former!