“If Christ has died for me, I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend.”
― Charles H. Spurgeon
Two things tell me a lot about myself: what I laugh at, and what makes me mad.
If something strikes me as funny, that shows I take delight in it, find it amusing, enjoy it. And usually that’s fine, because I hope to have a good sense of humor. I love to laugh, and good night, there’s lots to laugh at! So give me a good joke, a funny situation, clever one-liners, or glimpses of my own quirks, and I go off. But every so often I catch myself laughing at something off color, or cruel, or said at someone else’s expense. That’s when alarms should go off rather than me, because it means I’m enjoying what’s inherently wrong, and celebrating it with laughter. More to the point, the gap between what’s really funny and what I think is funny can show how far I’m still falling short. And sometimes that can be a pretty big gap.
But if the wrong response to a wrong thing is problematic, so is no response, because things that make God angry should make me angry, too. He hates injustice, needless divisions, pride, uncleanness, and hypocrisy, among a few million other sins. What He hates I should hate, having a holy response to whatever He loathes. Sometimes, thankfully, I do. But other times, when anger is called for, I’m missing in action. When someone’s gossiping, I should be mad, not interested. When something’s obscene it should arouse me morally, not sexually. So Paul said we’re not only to avoid the unfruitful works of darkness, but to reprove them as well. (Ephesians 5:11) When I’m yawning indifferently at what should be called out, then that, too, shows something’s missing. Because if I have His nature, which I surely do, then I should be having His responses as well.
All of which plays into how I’ll handle myself today. As soon as I pick up a newspaper I’ll read about things I should abhor. Standing in line at the bank I’ll hear remarks I should find troubling, not humorous. And who knows how many times I’ll flash on someone immodestly dressed, or some provocative billboard, or hear something completely inappropriate but very titillating on the radio? In all these situations, what provokes my laughter or my anger will be very, very telling.
How can I, as Spurgeon said in the quote above, trifle with what caused the death of the one I love more than any other? If someone did serious harm to me, and then my son, knowing how this person hurt his Dad, turned around and friended him on Facebook, texted him daily, and hung out with him, I can’t imagine how I’d feel. Nor can I imagine how He feels when I laugh at what broke His heart and body, or shrug at what He despises.
I want to do it right today. I want to keep it clean, not just because that’s the “right” thing to do, but because I share in His heart, His attitude, His nature.
So today, Lord, may I laugh often at the many truly funny things there are to enjoy, and burn angrily at the many things You burn over, making my actions and attitude harmonious with Yours. Let there be the miracle today of me being such a man after Your own heart that people who know both You and me will be moved to say, “I sure see a lot of His Dad in him.”
So be it.
