Have you ever had Holy Laughter come on you? That is what that scene from "Mary Poppins" reminds me of. You laugh until you think you will never stop. You realize how wonderful it must be in His presence. Joy is such a wonderful gift. And to see us straight faced most of the time as Christians is, well, not right. If we laugh in his presence or at least are full of joy so, well, some might be forced to crack a smile, it might be what God wants.
On Sunday we had a visitor to our fellowship from Brazil, Silas Esteves. He is the senior pastor in our sister church in Niteroi, Brazil. In fact he is over all of our churches in Latin America, including Mexico. It was delightful having him with us. He talked to us about obedience. Something we in our fellowship recognize about him is that he is a very humble and an obedient man of God. Silas said many important things about obedience, but this one thing kept cycling through my mind. He said "obedience draws His presence." I went home thinking about that one thought. But soon I sat down to a football game and that thought receded to the back of my mind.
We were keeping our grandson all weekend. He is a great kid, although he is having trouble in school with his teacher. After the game I played "school" with him. I mentioned that he was going to school tomorrow and he started to cry and said he didn't want to go to school. Suddenly the two ends came together. Joshie (his name) didn't like school because he was not being obedient to the teacher. Obedience draws His presence, and in his presence is fulness of joy. These two would come together for Josh when he decided to listen and do what his teacher told him. "I only do what I see my father doing" is what Christ said (John 5:19 ff). He learned obedience. Josh has to learn obedience. He will enjoy school when he does. I wonder if a lot of our dislike for learning is because we are not giving ourselves to be obedient to the process. Josh is getting ripped off of the joy of learning, that makes me mad.We can be in His presence more than we know. It does make me wonder if the places that I am unhappy are the places I need to reconnect with the Lord and become more obedient. Our obedience draws the Lord's presence, and His joy.
When I am doing what God asks me to do, I am staying in His presence where the fulness of Joy resides. The Hebrew word shema and the Greek word akouo both mean to hear and obey. Obeying has the element of really listening and hearing what is being said. A good student listens. It is amazing the battle on kids hearing. Think of all the sound that bombards them every day and yet it is hard for them to really hear. I want to have the ears that truly hear. I want my grandson to have the same. I want to live in His presence where there is fulness of Joy, to be caught up in His presence full of laughter. Is it possible that that is what the scene from Mary Poppins meant? No. Forget it, Jake, it's Holywood.
"I love to laugh long and loud and clear, I love to laugh it gets worse every year". Now don't watch this next part your gonna laugh. Holy Laughter (please disregard the notation before and after) I can't watch that second one without laughing. God is Great.
Except for the laughter part, you can hear a more direct word on obedience entitled, "Our Obedience- The Way Into His Kingdom" by Gary Hargrave.
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