Bible Reading: Psalm 126
Key Verse: Verse 2 - "Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.”
Key Words: Then was our mouth filled with laughter
It is one thing to laugh at others but another to laugh at ourselves. I’m convinced one sign of being mature is the ability to laugh at ourselves.
We laugh easily at the foibles of others. But the ability to laugh at one's self is a helpful tension-breaker. True, life is serious. But don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re not an Atlas, bearing alone the weight of the world!
Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a sober, sad, and deeply reflective person. But he is also remembered for his wit and humor, including the knack of laughing at himself. Deeply hurt when he learned one of his own cabinet members called him a fool, he laughingly turned it aside. “He is a very smart man, and if he thinks I am a fool,” Lincoln observed, “I had better look into the matter.” The same wit was reflected when someone, poking fun at his lanky legs, asked how long a man’s legs should be. “Long enough to reach the ground,” Lincoln retorted.
The night Adlai Stevenson conceded the presidential election to Dwight D. Eisenhower, he called on Lincoln’s wit to assuage his disappointment. In his concession speech to his weeping admirers in Springfield, Illinois, Mr. Stevenson recalled Mr. Lincoln’s words on one occasion when he, too, lost an election. “I feel like the little boy who stubbed his toe in the dark. He was too big to cry, and it hurt too much to laugh.”
Oftentimes when we “mess up” and others laugh at us, we respond with anger, failing to realize we are bringing upon ourselves the self-induced trial of being embarrassed. Think about it.
What to do:
✞ It never hurts to laugh at yourself. It beats the alternatives.
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