Let My Laughter Resound!
ALLOWING OTHERS TO ‘LAUGH’ AT MY ‘BALD HEAD’!
‘Baldness’ obviously ‘runs in my family’. ‘Baldness’ can be identified on the ‘side of my mother’, and also on the ‘side of my father’. My father was very bald. My dad’s brothers experienced ‘baldness’. My brother, who enjoyed long black hair when he was young, has been ‘bald’ for many years. I have nephews who are ‘bald’. My mother’s brother was bald. On and on it goes. Strong genes, that resulted in the baldness of most of the men in my extended family. From both ‘sides of my family’, (mom and dad), I was destined to be ‘bald’, and ‘bald’ even in my 20’s.
I had enough hair, when I was a teenager, to display various kinds of hair styles. For a few years I had a ‘butch’ haircut. The butch wax I used kept my hair standing tall! I was not to enjoy my longer hair for very long. By the time I reached my later 20’s, I had lost a lot of my hair! When I early in my adulthood became ‘bald’, I tended to look older than I really was – and that perhaps made me (as a pastor) appear to be ‘more mature’ than I really was!
The ‘closer’ one draws to the Savior, the more he realizes that his ‘identity’ is not determined by the ‘things’ of this external world – not one’s appearance, not one’s wealth, not one’s accomplishments professionally, not one’s peers (friends), not one’s intelligence, not one’s physical prowess.
Even though I wish I had more hair on the top of my head, and even though I tend to ‘envy’ those men who have a ‘full head of hair’, I have (gradually) learned that I must be grateful for the amount of hair that I have. I must be grateful for my totally ‘white’ hair that I have!
I have learned that God does not have to take as much time, counting the number of hairs that I have, as the amount of time that He has to take in counting the number of hairs on the head of a man with a heavy ‘stock’ of hair! Ha! I have learned that God loves ‘variety’, and that is why He created every person uniquely (including His creation of ‘bald-headed’ men)!
As was mentioned previously, the spirit of pride and self-consciousness and bitterness, shuts the door to any possibility of enjoying God’s gift of humor and laughter! I must confess that sometimes (in the past and even in the present) I have ‘closed the door’ to humor and to laughter in my life, because I have been too sensitive to my own ‘feelings’, I have been too defensive (because of my pride and self-protection), I have been resentful (because of someone’s infliction of hurt to me).
All of the above-listed attitudes are definitely attitudes that ‘come very short of the glory of God’ (very short of honoring the name and the cause of the Lord). They are attitudes that not only ‘close the door’ to the possibility of enjoying wholesome humor and fun and laughter, but they are attitudes that bring offense to my Lord – attitudes that need the forgiveness and the deliverance that only God can give!
Unfortunately, the above-listed (carnal) attitudes have, at times, dominated my life. It is when these attitudes take the ‘upper hand’ in my mind, that I need the forgiving grace of God. It is when I have humility and gratitude and receptivity and a forgiving spirit that I sense that the ‘channel of communication’ between me and my God, is clear and unclogged and pure. When I sense that my heart is ‘open’ before God, I correspondingly sense that I am ‘on good terms’ with my fellow men.
The divine formula is simple (yet profound): When I love God supremely (with all my sins forgiven), then I am enabled to love myself wholesomely (with my ‘identity’ centered in God alone), and then, logically, I am able, without self-preoccupation, to care for others, to lovingly serve others.
“Biblical Foundation For The Sanctity Of Human Life!”
Table of contents: Let my laughter resound!
Christian Devotionals 