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.
Joy Is a Choice
I have told you these things
so that you will be filled with my joy.
Yes, your joy will overflow!
(John 15:11)
God is no distant deity but a constant reality, a very present help whenever needs occur. So? So live like it. And laugh like it! Paul did. While he lived, he drained every drop of joy out of every day that passed. How do I know? This little letter to the Philippians says so.
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.
Unless some of you who read these words stop and think and plan and start to execute essential goals, indifference, passivity, and procrastination will win another victory.
I’m going to tell you how to waste your time this year. That’s right, if you follow this advice, you will make absolutely no progress this year. Guaranteed! Put these suggestions into motion, and your new year could set records in wasting valuable time.
Well, just for some tongue-in-cheek fun, I’d like to take the opposite tack. I’m going to tell you how to waste your time. That’s right, if you follow this advice, you will make absolutely no progress this year. Guaranteed!
There isn’t a day that passes in which I fail to see, hear, or read something that makes me smile. And because laughter is such an effective therapy, I’m grateful that God dispenses this divine medication so frequently.
I’ve learned you don’t need to be happy all the time—or even have a great sense of humour—to receive the benefits of laughter.
I’ve been married more than 30 years in a row partly because I have learned the hard way that there are 777 things you should never say to your wife.
Well, I did (do) have a problem with procrastination, and I waited too long to start studying for this final. It was the night before and I literally had to learn an entire semester worth of work in one night.
Here we are in our early fifties and, I kid you not, we’re expecting.
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