Six Things God Uses to Encourage Part 4

We’ve been exploring six ways in which the Lord encourages those of us with chronic illness/conditions. We’ve discussed the Word of God, Music, Fellowship, and Thankfulness. This week, I’d like to talk about Humor!

I have always loved humor. It’s become part of my personality. I even enjoy the dreaded pun and I adore making others laugh. What I discovered is that the more difficulties I face, the more important humor is to me. It has a way of disarming the anxiety and adding lightheartedness to an otherwise dreary day of fatigue and pain. Humor has gotten me through a ton of difficulties as I’ve found that God usually hides a little humor inside the struggle.

“A cheerful heart is a good medicine.”—Proverbs 17:22

I didn’t realize it until I started looking, but there is a lot of humor in the Bible. God invented humor as a release, a way of teaching, and a way of coping with the difficult things in our lives. I read a great article about how God uses humor in His Word.

Here’s are a couple of passages from that article:

“But I think Hebrews 11:12 is the funniest verse in the Bible: ‘Therefore there was born even of [Abraham], and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars in heaven …’ (emphasis mine, NASB).”

“Of course God’s humor is never cruel the way humans twist it to be at times. In fact, God is entirely pure and untainted, thus so is his humor. Such a God inspired the author of Proverbs to write, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful” (15:13), or seen from the opposite point of view in verse 30, “A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.” Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Aren’t you glad?”

This is why I share humor and create funny memes to share here and on my Facebook group, Life Beyond Surviving.

Humor is a gift God gives us to help us through the difficult times. What humor have you found hidden inside your struggles?

Come back again next week when I’ll share about how prayer is another thing that God gives us to encourage us.