Never laugh at God … wait to laugh with him!

“A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.”

Ecclesiastes 3:4 New Living Translation 

When God says it’s time to stop crying and begin laughing …

don’t laugh at him… laugh with him!

She was an old, childless lady whose hope had long since run its course. A ninety year old woman may hope for good weather or the tulips to come up soon. She may have hope for enough strength for her husband and herself to remain independent.

But hope for a baby of her own? Hardly.

And so it was that this famous lady upon overhearing a stranger tell her husband that she would birth a baby boy within the next year did what most would do. “She laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?” Genesis 18:12 New Living Bible

We all encounter things that challenge our ability to believe. An illness that appears threatening, a car that needs to be replaced on a budget already stretched like a rubber band, a job that will end prematurely … and a thousand other possibilities for us to lose hope.

Or continue to hope anyway.

God sees things differently than us. He sees further than we do. And if he speaks into our hearts of things he sees for us, things he plans for us – we have a choice. We can laugh at the audacity of his word, or trust him knowing that someday we will laugh with him when his word comes true.

The time does indeed come when the reality God spoke of became a baby boy in Sarah’s arms … a son named Isaac. The Hebrew meaning of this name? “Laughter!”

Laughter has come full circle. She who struggled to believe is swept along right into God’s own laughter. Her testimony?

“And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this

will laugh with me.  Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would

nurse a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a son in his old age!”

Genesis 21:6,7 New Living Translation

Don’t dread the day when God says something preposterous to you about his plans … get ready to laugh!