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What's the last thing that made you laugh? As the smile grew across your face, what did you feel in your body? Very likely, even if just for a brief moment, everything felt light.
When we express gratitude or serve others, it may be relatively easy to recognize that we're living in the image of God. But laughter and delight don't always seem like a direct reflection of God's character. Sometimes, we may even wonder if humor is a distraction from the seriousness of our faith.
If we look to the Scriptures, though, we find that not only does God condone delight, but he is divinely filled with joy.
"God is happy," writes Andrew Wilson in an excerpt from his book Happiness at CT. "He is happy in himself, in his people, and in everything he does. It is why the psalmist describes God’s presence as fullness of joy, with pleasures forever at his right hand, and why one of the most visible results of keeping in step with the Holy Spirit is bearing the fruit of joy (Gal. 5:22). God is invisible, but he is invisibly smiling rather than invisibly scowling."
May we reflect the image of the delighting God, cultivating joy and laughter throughout our lives of faith. |
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A simple step. A lasting legacy.
August is Make-a-Will Month. Have you reviewed your estate plan recently? |
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Through Christianity Today’s partnership with PhilanthroCorp, you can receive free, biblically grounded estate planning guidance to help you steward what God has entrusted to you and support the ministries you love. |
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While the internet seems consumed with political debate, as Christians, we must practice acknowledging cultural fissures and fractures while also placing our ultimate hope in God alone. Christ’s work invites us to work toward repair. As America observes its 250th birthday this year, we both celebrate the American experiment in democracy and speak honestly about it; as Justin Giboney writes in "America 250," "We must be able to critique and appreciate with impartiality." In her essay on notable books, Jen Pollock Michel calls readers to consider how freedom for (not just freedom from) is necessary. Also, historian George Marsden looks back at 1976, the year of the evangelical, and Bonnie Kristian examines Charlie Kirk’s legacy. We hope you’ll spend some time with Angela Lu Fulton’s feature "The Cost of Training Up a Chinese Child," about Chinese Christians who have kept their faith preeminent, and Emily Belz’s reporting on an Anglican church’s support of families healing a year after a school shooting. Whether you find yourself naming fractures or repairing fissures, we hope this will lower the cultural temperature, showing that our faithful work matters but also that Christ promises to make all things new. |
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