How to Make God Laugh, and Why You Don't Want to.

I was visiting my grandfather the other day in the nursing home.  He had collapsed a few weeks ago, and is undergoing rehab to see if they can get him back to being able to get around independently.  As I was there with grandma & grandpa and two of my kids working on a puzzle in the hallway, a man started making a scene.  My grandfather told me that he sometimes gets like that.  He started yelling about nothing in particular, about us being in his way at the table, about the disturbance we were, and he took off with his walker down the hall.  When a nurse saw him, she was a little alarmed because he is not supposed to be walking without an aide to help him, so she stood in front of him and told him it was time to go back to his room.  At this point, he says "Get out of my way, I'm going to run you over!"

Now, the nurse wasn't laughing, at least not on the outside, but she could have been.  I believe she could have lied down on the floor in front of this man and he still would have been unable to 'run over' her, or even step over her for that matter.

Psalm chapter 2 pictures people who would rage against God in much the same boat as that old man.  With little strength, and truly unable to comprehend the reality in front of them.  So how did the people in Psalm 2 get God to laugh?  They raged against God and God's people, and 'imagined a vain thing.'  We have all imagined a vain thing at one time or another.  If you haven't, you missed out on childhood, and many good lessons to be learned in early adulthood.  My favorite 'vain thing' I remember is actually my brother's.  He wanted to build a perpetual motion machine out of his Legos.  He worked on it, and worked on it, and had trouble figuring out why it wouldn't work.  There is a value in that type of thinking - in testing the 'walls', in business that is where innovation comes from.  A vain thing, though, is a thing that will not work out, a thing with no value, a thing that is nothing but wasted effort.  The vain thing these were doing is trying to overpower God.  This is what God laughs about.  About man's attempt to thwart His plans.

Now, about why you don't want to make God laugh this way: He's stronger than we are:

"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure." 

- Psalm 2:1-5

So, if you want to make God laugh, just plot, plan, and scheme to overthrow Him.  But be ready for His response.  The upside?  It is spelled out in the rest of the chapter of how wisdom is to "Serve the Lord with fear," but I prefer the NT version in Romans 8:31 -

"What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?"

Who do we have to cause us worry? Certainly not those who rage against God - He will take care of those.  And not God, either.  We are to serve with fear, not with worry.  The difference being worry has no standing before God, fear respects God's power and authority, yet understands that Jesus' death on the cross gives us the opportunity to have our sins forgiven and be able to stand before God.

So, save your jokes for your friends, and let others make God laugh today.