Taking a Break and Laughing
Break Principle 1: Realizing that a “happy heart does good like a medicine,” made a conscious choice to enjoy the moment. Partaking of the wonderful things provided by a Loving God and in the joy of Jesus Christ.
Much of the following stories and jokes were borrowed, but sadly I have forgotten the sources.
There is no doubt in my mind that recovery is serious, but I also know that God has a plan for each of us to enjoy recovery through our relationship with Him and our relationships here on earth. We have covered some very serious topics in past weeks, but tonight we are going to take a break and discover some of the joy that God has planned for each of us. I am convinced that God enjoys a good joke, after all, He made a donkey talk in order to advise a prophet and He chose me to lead a recovery group. God must have a sense of humor.
Join me, if you will, to laugh and lighten the burdens of life a little bit.
The Last Laugh
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
“God,” the scientist said, “We’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist readily agreed.
“There’s one stipulation,” God said, “We’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The scientist agreed and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”
God often allows us to exercise our own will and arrogance until we prove that we are not God and we are truly powerless, that our lives are out of control. At that point God grants us awareness of our condition, we just need to accept that fact and admit our powerlessness.
Some times God works in the most unusual and unexpected ways.
I hope this is a true story if it isn’t true it should be true because God works in His own way.
An atheist college professor told his class that he was going to prove that there was not a God. He said, “God if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you 15 minutes!”
Ten minutes went by. He kept taunting God, saying, “Here I am God, I’m still waiting.” He got down to the last couple of minutes when a BIG 240-pound football player happened to walk by the door and heard what the professor said. The football player walked in the classroom and at the last minute, he walked up, hit the professor full force, and sent him flying off the platform. The professor got up, obviously shaken, and said, “Where did you come from, and why did you do that?” The football player replied, “God was busy; He sent me!”
I have heard a true story very similar to this. A college professor challenged anyone in his class to pray that the glass beaker he was about to drop would not break. One student took the challenge and when the professor dropped the glass beaker, it landed on his foot and rolled to the floor unbroken. God shows that He exists in some very unusual ways, we need to be aware that it’s God demonstrating His existence.
He also shows us that we matter to Him; after all, He created the 3 major food groups; white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate.
Will Rogers once said, “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” He also stated, “There are three kinds of people: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to touch the electric fence.”
I can not argue with these sentiments, so instead of learning by suffering the consequences of our poor decisions, why not choose to turn all of our life and will over to Christ’s care and control? We can go through life touching the electric fence or we can allow Jesus to steer us away to the green pastures.
You can believe that those pastures are green indeed. When a four-year-old boy was asked what he looked forward to most when he entered Heaven, he replied, “You never throw-up and you get to jump on the couch.” Can I have a big amen for that one?
Just remember, “There is no fear in submitting to a love that would die for you.” “The Lord won’t take you where His grace can’t keep you.” There is nothing to fear in letting Jesus take control.
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” However, Carl Woody said, “The unlived life is not worth examining.” All due respect to Mr. Woody, we are living life at this very moment so we find ourselves in need of examining our faults. “Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God?” He already knows everything about you so your only worry is to be totally honest with yourself, with someone you trust, and with God. Honesty includes accuracy.
So remember Sara’s experience at the dentist’s office.
Sara noticed the dentist’s certificate with his full name hanging on the waiting room wall. She suddenly remembered that a tall, handsome boy with the same name had been in her high school class about 40 years ago.
When she finally saw the dentist she quickly dismissed the thought because he was a balding, gray-haired man with a deeply lined face. She thought, “He’s too old to have been in my class.”
After the examination, she couldn’t resist asking what high school he attended and what year he graduated. He answered, “In 1958.” “Why you were in my class!” she exclaimed. He looked at her closely and asked, “What did you teach?”
Yes, honesty means accuracy so don’t let your self-image be out-of-touch with reality. All too often we want to hang on to our pain, hurts, and hang-ups because we fear change, we fear the future without the life we have always known. Please note that trying to hang on to what we have will leave you with nothing.
There was a man that loved his money so much that while on his death bed he made his wife promise to bury all of his money with him. At the funeral, the obedient widow placed a large shoebox in the casket. The shoe box had a large $ sign on the outside.
Her best friend, knowing about the promise, whispered to the widow, “You didn’t keep that ridiculous promise to that old penny-pincher, did you?”
“Absolutely,” the widow replied. “I cashed in all of his assets; I wrote him a check and put it in the shoebox.”
What we desire is an attitude of gratitude.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” (Melody Beattie)
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Peace and serenity is God’s plan for each of us. Please commit the Serenity Prayer to memory:
God,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change;
The courage to change the things can and
The wisdom to know the difference.
If you can’t remember this prayer then perhaps this is the prayer for you.
God, please grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do like and the eyesight to tell the difference.
Amen
Laughter is truly good medicine. I’ll close with this quote from Og Mandino. “Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression and help you to put in perspective that seemingly-terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come.”
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