Have you ever watched animals just be animals without them noticing you? Sometimes, we will stand by one of our windows and watch the squirrels be crazy lunatics. Running around, fighting with each other, leaping and bounding from one tree limb to another. I’ve also watched puppies and kittens not realize how sleepy they are and stand over their bowl of food, eyes barely open, falling asleep as they attempt to eat. I recall watching video of a momma panda and her baby. The momma was falling asleep and the baby suddenly sneezed and scared the momma awake in such a humorous manner that I must have been laughing for a solid 5 minutes the first time that I watched it.
How does this relate to faith? Pretty simple, Jesus is a real fungi (it’s a dad joke, I know). Since we know that Jesus is God and God created everything, it’s safe to assume that Jesus’ personality is all through out the things that we see each and every day. Think about it, Jesus created those crazy squirrels. He made young animals cute and silly. He added a touch of comedy to seemingly random things. But why would He do that? To bring joy to our lives!
Jesus isn’t that image that we have of a monk sitting still and meditating all day, never speaking a word and being all serious when He isn’t in meditation mode. Jesus has a sense of humor. You can see it in numerous stories in the New Testament as well as in your every day life. Jesus wants you to be happy and get some laughs in while you’re here.
Remember the story from the last post? Jesus knows His friends haven’t caught anything, but He jokingly asks them if they caught any fish? That’s pretty funny!
Or perhaps when Thomas refuses to believe that Jesus has risen. Thomas tells the other disciples who saw Jesus after His resurrection that He won’t believe them until he can see Jesus with his own eyes and put his fingers through the holes left in His hands from the nails that were driven through them. A week later they’re all hanging out again. The doors are locked, but all of a sudden, there’s Jesus. He turns to Thomas and says “Wassup?! Check out this wound! Put your finger through it!” There would have been no way for Jesus to know what Thomas had said (that is unless He actually was God…) but He shows up and has him do exactly what Thomas said he would need to do in order to believe that He had risen.
Jesus is playful. He isn’t all work and no play.
This goes back to Jesus wanting to be our friend. Friends joke around, pull pranks on each other, do silly and dumb things together that build the relationship and strengthen the bond. Jesus created the humorous creatures to make you laugh. He hits you with some pretty random, and often funny, things to get your attention and He gives you moments that just strike the right nerve and get you laughing uncontrollably for no reason other than that you could use a good laugh.
If you only expect to find Jesus on Sunday mornings or at a group Bible study or on some sort of mission trip or faith seminar then you are really limiting Jesus. He shows up in the mundane every day things that can be a real blink and you’d miss it sort of thing. He is constantly trying to get our attention. Each and every day, if you look hard enough, you will see Jesus in your life.
Having a bad day at work and a coworker comes over to tell you how much they appreciate your help, that’s Jesus. Fighting with your spouse and then the dog does some kind of dumb summersault off of the couch and storms off when you both start to laugh, that’s Jesus. Taking a moment to clear your mind at the end of the day and you catch the exact colors of sunset that you absolutely love to see, Jesus. A random text from a friend you haven’t spoken to in a few months or years and you are lifted by some of the fun memories that you shared, Jesus.
Taking up your cross and following Jesus isn’t always a fun and enjoyable thing. There are hardships. There’s persecution (although here in America it may just be that people look at you funny when you start talking about God stuff). There’s bills to pay, medical conditions to endure, losses to grieve. But through it all, our friend Jesus is with us. He shares each of those moments with us. He knows when we need a gentle lift or a hard belly laugh. He knows when we need to see a sunset or a majestic deer in the distance. He knows how to lift our spirits and keep us from diving deep into our own despair and He does so each day. We just need to recognize that Jesus is in the simple things too. It’s not just the big moments in our lives, but all of the moments of our lives that Jesus is there with us.
Journey Through Faith 