Laughing Keeps Me Humble

Want more grace?  Get a three year old.  Let me tell you why…

At the end of 1 Peter 5:5 there is a tag on quote that is easily missed, but when noticed and pressed into a practical situation, is rather halting.  James uses the same quote in his letter, in chapter 4, verse 6.  You may be reminded already of the one I’m talking about.  The quote goes like this:  “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Both of these guys are quoting Proverbs 3:34, which in our English Bible says, “Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.”  Though Peter and James used accurate synonyms, either way, grace or favor, both are heaped with tremendous proportion on those who are humble…and a three year old has a knack for keeping you humble.

In the Weeda house we have a well established rule:  You don’t eat until your hands are washed.  Thus, when Amy, my wife, indicates there is food available to consume, no matter which meal time it may be, our two oldest kids race for the bathroom competing to be the first to wash up.  Livia on the other hand, our three year old, generally dottles toward the table declaring she has already washed her hands; a true statement…sort of.  What she actually means is two hours ago she washed her hands after playing outside or sneezing or attending to some other activity I needn’t mention.  Often the result of this scenario is our youngest arriving last at the table.

Well, early last week my wife called the kids to the dinner table.  Predictably, the two oldest bolted for the bathroom, and just as predictably and right on cue, Livia announced her hands were already washed and headed for her chair.  I promptly turned her around and aimed her at the bathroom where she reluctantly took her place in the back of the line.

So, there we are, Amy and I and the two oldest kids waiting at the dinner table for Livia to join us.  At last, she emerges from the bathroom.  She was distracted for much of the distance between the bathroom and the dinner table by the fresh smell of clean hands.  But as she came to her chair, she glanced up at me, and with all the astonishment and concern of a child noticing for the first time a dead deer by the side of the road she blurts out uninhibitedly, “Ohhhh, Daddy, you have a humongous pimple on the side of your face!”

Now, I don’t know what your experience with puberty was.  Here is a snapshot collage of mine:  The trauma of picture day and the gratitude for “touch-up” technology, sitting in a dermatologist’s office staring at biology posters of various “facial blemishes,” and a crispy red face from prescription strength zit ointment.  And although that was twenty years ago, Livia just pressed the “refresh” button and I had a choice to make before several carefully watching and impressionable eyes…as do you whenever you find yourself at the butt end of a similar statement, whether out of innocence, in obvious good humor or joking, or even out of ill-intent.

The choices, as I think back now, in that particular present tense were at least two-fold.  Either I could squelch the muffled chuckles from Livia’s older siblings and squash Livia herself by arrogantly demanding she apologize (or worse yet, discipline her for her careless wielding of innocence).  Or I could lead the way in busting out with uproarious laughter and receive Livia’s wonder-full discovery and subsequent broadcast as a means of cultivating humility.  According to Peter and James, choosing the former would position me in direct opposition with God, receiving from Him that which is in line with my actions and attitude of pride; scorn for the scornful.  Choosing the later, however, would root me firmly along the banks of God’s limitless flow and lavish offering of grace and favor.  See how that verse becomes rather halting in a practical situation.

The moment froze as I replayed what I just heard.  I looked across the table at Amy.  She was obviously strained between expressing the hilarity of the moment and expressing her wedding vow to honor me.  Her clenched lips and smiling eyes gave away her lean.  I refrained from looking at the two older kids, knowing that one in particular would lose it to laughing if I made eye contact with him.  Instead I looked back at Livia.  Her eyes bounced between family members as she tried to discern from all our faces whether what she just said was right, wrong, or hysterical.  The query in her eyes made my choice for me.  I laughed out loud; a frenzied laughter that quickly caught on, filling our home with amusement.

One of the kids confirmed Livia’s observation:  “Oh yeah, you do!”  The other took the joke further, as he often does so well:  “Take a picture of it!”  When Livia realized her comment had brought such grand joy to others in laughter her face lit up with a wonderful buoyant delight, which frankly, was quite enough of God’s limitless flow and lavish offering of grace and favor for me.

Well, later that week, as I reflected more fully on the event (something I suspect only a guy like me would do), I remembered several years ago I picked up a cassette copy of a message on pride and humility by C.J. Mahaney.  I rummaged through a pile of teaching tapes in my office and found it, and began listening to it again in my car.

In the message Mahaney outlines several practical ways to “mortify pride and cultivate humility.”  Most of them are nice biblically outlined points that tie into core doctrinal beliefs; things like regularly exploring the doctrine of sin or the doctrine of election, or living life as near to the cross as possible.  Each would indeed work to level pride in our lives and cause us to walk more humbly before our God.  But there was one in particular that struck me as being so practical and so overlooked in our present day culture of posturing and poise…he said, “Laugh at yourself when you are the source of humor.”  Man, do we ever miss that, yeah?  He went on to quip that, for you and me, “normally there is just a lot funny about [us].  There is!  We all bring tons of material to the table.”  And I laughed to myself as I drove:  Yes, Andy, you did just that, you brought some solid humiliating material to the table that night.

But, really, shouldn’t we all be so pleased to do so?  Shouldn’t we all long to be found in a posture of humility; laughing hysterically at ourselves, particularly as our kids, our families, even our friends, look on?  Isaiah 66:2 says God himself is looking out for those who are “humble and contrite in spirit,” most assuredly that he may heap grace and favor on them.  Frankly, I’m a bit ashamed that it took me so long that night to decide to laugh at myself.  Thankfully God often offers second chances, usually to check how well you learned the lesson the first time.

The very next morning a sleepy-eyed Livia wandered out of her bedroom to greet the day.  I knelt down to receive a cuddle hug.  As I did, her eyes brightened and she exclaimed with equal innocence as the night before, “Your humongous pimple is gone!  You popped it!”  I stemmed the wait time, pulled her into my arms and laughed with her and squeezed her and found joy in the grace and favor that is mine as I seek to walk humbly before my God…and my three-year-old.

If you are curious about the C.J. Mahaney message, a very similar message may be viewed on YouTube.