Some might think I’m being disrespectful, but there are a couple of Bible stories that I find funny. I mean seriously. Peter is rescued from jail in a miraculous way, goes to the house where he knows Christians are probably praying for him and Rhoda gets so excited at seeing him she basically slams the door in his face in her excitement to tell everyone.
As a parent, I also find the quail story in the Old Testament quite amusing. What parent wouldn’t have been tempted to say “Really? I got you out of slavery, give you free food (manna) and you really want to complain because I’m not sending meat? (my words obviously!) and then in God’s words which he told Moses to tell the people “Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” (Numbers 11)
“Until it’s coming out of your nose!” Now that’s “parenting” humor! If God has a sense of humor even when He was obviously angry, should Christian parenting be able to incorporate humor as well? The problem is that often when people try to be funny, they quickly descend into crass or mean humor. That’s not how you want to introduce humor into your Christian parenting.
Instead, try to focus more on the clean comic type of humor. When bad things happen, try to find the humor in them. I will never forget when our daughter was little, we had a terrible ice storm causing us to lose electricity for days. I had to go out and gather more wood from the wood pile at the back of our yard. Yet, by this point huge icicles were dropping in the warming temperatures like swords falling from the trees in our yard. My solution? Wear a metal bowl as a helmet to protect my head! We laughed about my fashion sense that day and for years after that.
Having a period of time when everyone is working too hard? Declare a break and watch something funny together. Have game nights and play funny games. Tell jokes and riddles. Show your kids the joy and humor in the world around them, like this little guy who is suddenly outside of our local mall.
Helping your kids find the joy and humor in life, can make a huge difference. Appropriate comedy is a gift from God to help lighten our loads. Make sure your kids know how to tap into it.